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ADMIRAL GEORGE DEWEY, U. S. N. 



TAKING MANILA 



OR 



N THE PHILIPPINES WITH DEWEY 



IN 



GIVINO THK LIFF. AND EXPLOITS OF 

ADMIRAL GEORGE DEWEY, U. S. N, 



HV o^J^ 'O 

HENRY iJ^TLLIAMS 




NEW YORK 

HURST & COMPANY 

Publishers 



Office of the 
Register of Copyrights^ 



48694 

Copyright, 1S99, 
r.v 

THOMAS D. HURST, 



SECOND COPY. 



THE LIFE AND CAREER 

OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW THE PLAJiTT MAY BE SEEX IN" THE GERM. — ES- 
TIMABLE PORERUl^NERS. — BOYISH SCAPES AN'D 
SCRAPES. — THE SCHOOL REVOLT AIS^D THE NOBLE 
APOLOGY. 

There is an old saying, and it is often true, that 
" As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined."' It 
is always interesting, therefore, to trace back the 
forerunners of a great man, jast to see if there 
were tokens of the future in the past members of a 
race. 

Without attaching the weight to a family line 
which is done in the Old World, where entailed 
property causes a pedigree to be of value, the Dewey 
family have reason to be proud, in a really American 
way, of their ancestry. 

If they want to boast of ''blue blood," that is, 
knightly or royal, the genealogists claim that the 
first Dewey (the name is variously given^ but was 
something like De Ueuea, probably De Vevay) won 
fame in attendance on Charlemagne, or Karl the 
Great, if not that little King Pepin, whose bravery 

5 



.6 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

gave a significance to the word " pippin/' in the 
sense in which boys use it to this day. 

Be this as it may, the first spelling of the name in 
English documents is '' Duee/' 

The wearer was one Thomas Duee, who left Eng- 
land to make a home in the Colonies in the middle 
of the seventeenth century, and became known as 
^' Dewey the Settler " from the thriving of his family 
in the land wrested from the savages of New Eng- 
land. 

In the summer of 1633, Thomas Dewey was living 
in Boston, where he was working to obtain a land 
grant, as, like most of the Dissenters (those who 
dissented from the State Religion of England), he 
sought to dwell afar in the wilds, rather than be 
within possible reach of the annoyances bristling 
against foes of the Established Church. The Mas- 
sachusetts Colony sold him a tract in Dorchester, in 
December of the following year, and as he had a 
clear idea of the capability of growth in the virgin 
territory, he added another portion to it in July, 
1635. 

To go upon the location, he had to cut his way 
through the primeval forests of maple, pine and oak, 
and with the felled and hewn logs, build such a 
cabin as one now sees, in that region, in pictures 
alone. 

The musket went besides the ax, for the natives 
did not always confirm the decrees of the Land Court 
of the Colony, and they had a sweet tooth which did 
not disdain the English fruit and vegetables strug- 
gling with the luxuriant wild weeds in the garden 
patc-h as if all nature resented the ^cross-sea intruders' 
coming. 

Thomas's immediate descendants bear those Scrip- 
tural names which alone would tell of the Puritanical 
strain : Mercy, Mehitable, Simeon, Hepzibah, etc. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 7 

Being beset by that fever of change causing the 
^' Bostons," as the Indians nicknamed the Yankees, 
to permeate the whole of the Americas, Thomas 
had scarcely more than cleared his lots, before he 
wanted to dispose of them, and he is next found in 
the Colony of Connecticut, where, at Windsor, he 
found a site more to his taste than that at Dorches- 
ter, of which he relieved himself to one of the Jones 
family. In this transfer he simply puts down his 
mark. It appears that a mark was not always a 
proof of lack of letters, as old documents were reck- 
oned valid even if the signer only used his family 
crest and motto, and the attesting clerk wrote his 
initials. Dewey might have used a proud one, for 
he had an eminent French general among forbears, 
and the house motto is : '^ To the Conqueror the 
Crown ! " 

The Dorchester land amounted to thirty acres, 
cleared of the woods so as to be j^asture, which stands 
for a good piece of ax- work and stump-pulling. 
Besides, the American woodsman's ax was not in- 
vented then, and to hew a tree down with a broad- 
ax was decidedly hard labor. 

His son, Thomas, showed the valor of the blood ; 
he was a cornet of horse in the war against the 
Indian chief, called, grandly, ^'King^' Philip. His 
tomb was to be seen at Westfield, Mass. His son 
Samuel was a soldier in the regular corps defending 
Westfield and the neighborhood, in 1725. Other 
Deweys appear in the front in all the military affairs 
which kept the farmers inured to weapons of war 
and fitted them not inadequately to cope with the 
French or the British and their German hirelings 
during the troubles of the Colonies and the Eevolu- 
tion. 

The Paladins of Pepin and the Chevaliers of Char- 
lemagne have no cause to blush, unless with pride, 



8 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

if they should know of their descendants' behavior 
as " Green Mountain Boys " and '' Minute Men." 

Cradled in the Bay State, the rising Deweys^ soon 
spread their wings for a wider range. In 1761, a 
party of explorers obtained a land grant from the 
Governor of Xew Hampshire to locate in the Green 
Mountain State. Tliey belonged to Massachusetts 
and Connecticut. The place had been surveyed, 
after a rough way, some ten years before, and so the 
i-oad — what a road ! — was indicated by cutting off 
slices of the tree bark so that the inner white showed 
up clearly, being the *' blazes," often alluded to as 
"signs" in early rustic story. Thus the immi- 
grants, riding horses— for no vehicles could traverse 
the wilderness — reached what is since Bennington. 
The town was then in suspense, having been ten years 
waiting to fulfil the grant for fifty families to make a 
town, when a fair could be held and a market. Educa- 
tion and religion went hand in hand with the Puritans, 
for one lot of the sixty odd was devoted to the scliool, 
and another to the minister. Now this minister 
was Jedediah Dewey, the source of the Vermont 
Deweys. 

(Another branch, be it mentioned by the way, 
plunged still farther into the " strange countrie," and 
settled in New York.) 

The traits of these heads of families are independ- 
ence, that acute and alert mental arithmetic which 
distinguishes *' lightning calculators," and^ the New 
Englanders in particular, and choice of friends and 
those more intimate still, without regard to kin or 
clan. 

Simeon Dewey was born in 1770 ; he was grand- 
father of our subject. He was of New Hampshire, 
belonging to Hanover ; but, when a young man, 
bought a homestead at Berlin, a few miles from 
Montpelier (^'On the Onion," as we used to chant in 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 



our geographical lessons, before the folks there be- 
came nice and took the vulgar name from the river 
and bestowed that of its confluent, the Wmooski, on 
the two streams). His son, the admiral's father, was 
born here, in 1801. His mother was Pauline lemons, 
and the latter name becomes the middle one for Di\ 

Julius T. Dewey. 

Simeon was dubbed ^^the Captain." He was ex- 
ceedingly hale and long-lived, like the old iron-sided 

settlers' stock. . ^ 

When the admiral's brother was visiting Lngiand, 
not so long ago, he overheard, in company, a gentle- 
man who derived his impression of Americans froni 
the type in the comic press, that is to say, a sort ot 
Lincoln and Sam Slick, tall, ungainly, sallow, hollow- 
cheeked, and consumptive : ^i . x 

'^ These ' cornstalks' die early because they try to 
live on ice-water and fried pork ! " 

Mr Charles Dewey could not let this pass, lie 
rose to thank the slanderer for explaining the mystery 
of his (Dewey's) grandfather having been cut ott 
untimely at four score and eighteen by too much 
ice-water and fried pork, to which dainties the old 
pioneer had been addicted from childhood! 

Dewey's father was made happy by his son, the 
hero, being born to him on the day after Christmas, 
in 1837. George was a robust, sturdy child, not at 
all after the pattern of the elongated Yankee fed on 
ice-water and scrapple. ,-, j.-> ,c *. 

The birthplace cottage— utterly unlike the '' cot- 
tages " which are villas, to be seen iii the Green 
Mountains nowadays— has not only been made mod- 
ern but removed from its old site where it stood 
opposite the Capitol building, to another spot down 

the street. , ^ . ,^. 

When our hero was a boy, the Onion River ran 
close behind the dwelling, which naturally attracted 



lO THE LIFE AND CAREER 

the youth, and was the scene of his aquatic adven- 
tures. 

A younger sister was at the first his companion in 
sports, which comprised fishing and ^'^scow ^'-ing on 
tlie water. 

George became the best swimmer in the town, an 
accomplishment which the critics were too much 
inlanders to censure, for it was an article of faith 
among the old-time mariners that a seaman should 
not know how to swim, so that nothing should induce 
him to leave a ship going down while it was likely 
that clinging to her would serve to keep her longer 
afloat. 

Dr. Dewey was a great favorite in the town, being 
of the new school opposed to the blunt, rough Dr. 
Abernethy^s. The Deweys have always been leaders 
in the society of Montpelier, and the doctor was 
especially so. Versed in music and poetry, with a 
library not all of scientific works, he Avas one of those 
ministrants of medicine whose smile and address 
helped to banish sharp malady as well as dull care. 
In his leisure, if a country joractitioner can be said 
to have leisure, he built up an insurance company 
which prospers after his quitting the helm, in 1877. 

Besides the course of the regular physician, as is 
allowable in a country town, the doctor was a dentist. 

One day, as George was playing before the house 
with a mate (who relates the following occurrence), 
a woman came up and alighted from a buggy. By 
her agonized expression and the swollen cheek done 
up in the gorgeous bandana handkerchief, held as 
a sign of a certain rank in those days, the boys sur- 
mised it was a patient. But when the neighbor's 
boy diagnosed the matter as ^^ mumps," George de- 
murred and more scientifically adjudged it to be an 
aching tooth. 

The doctor came forth upon his sou calling, and 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. II 

as the woman, more faint with apprehension than 
even with her pain, sank on the nearest seat, namely, 
the doorway step, he hastened to save her from 
farther trouble by proposing to relieve her of the 
molar upon the spot. Besides, there was a bette 
lia-ht in the broad day than indoors while the street 
wis at the moment-as it is at any hour when the 
House is not sitting "-quiet and unpeopled. 

Still, the patient was uneasy without a head-rest, 
such as the sharp-edged doorpost badly afforded. 
The doctor called the boy playmate to the aid, 
stationing him so as to support the patient s head, 
with his hands holding it between them. Ihe tash- 
ionable extracting instrument at the period was a 
sort of turning-key, the sight of which usually par- 
alvzed the victim into calm ; but, on this occasion, 
whatever the sight of it did, the first turn and wrench 
drew from her, not the tooth, but a scream which 
echoed up and down the elm-lined street and died 
away in the Capitol corridor with mournful echoes 
in the granite niche where stands the colossal statue 
of Ethan Allen. 

The poor youth, who had never heard such an 
outcry except in dreams of the Pequots and Algon- 
Quins, was shaken with horror, and dropping the 
woman's head and all ideas of duty, fled up the street, 
vaulting over the white picket fence rather than 

delay to find the gate. . . , , ^i -n i i <- 

Not so his companion, who might be thrilled but 
not set to flight by a simple yell. He flew to the 
woman's side, caught the sinking head '^ on the 
bounce," and replaced the fugitive so quickly and to 
the better that his father was enabled to finish the 
operation with his wonted success awaiting such 

affairs. , ^ ,-, 

When next the two playfellows met, George rather 
ineered at one who had proved delinquent for so 



12 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

little, since, he propounded, a woman's screams could 
not hurt. Alas ! when he was older, he must have 
read that shrieks of the gentler sex have undone 
worlds, as witness those of Thais, Cassandra and 
Lucretia. 

The cycle of sports for juveniles at Montpelier is 
limited. At that time, with that zest for fruit in 
other folk's gardens, so far the sweeter than those 
growing under our own outlook, of course, the young 
Green Slountain boys went " hooking a])ples." They 
did not disdain cherries, and those peaches which 
resist the terrible black frosts of New England. 
Tradition has it that George was the leader in this 
game of *^ dare-devil," otherwise, '^follow-my- 
leader.'' 

But boys will be boys, and these freaks, which 
would be held as infringing on the statutes against 
purloining, do not count against those who take in 
sport and not for gain ; besides, much is to be for- 
given in a future hero. These fliglits were no more 
marked with black than young Clive's, afterwards 
Viceroy of the East Indies, climbing his village 
church-steeple. 

In the summer, too, were those wondrous strolls, 
with the proviso that whoever first suggested a re- 
turn should suffer the kicks of the rest of the party ! 
But George's earlier wanderings were in the company 
of the young sister referred to, with whom they sur- 
mounted what hills were Alps to them, and peered 
into crevices in whose black depths, no doubt, they 
fancied to see wolves like Old Put's. 

In his scant library were the inevitable '' Robinson 
Crusoe " and a Life of Hannibal. It was to outdo 
the Lonely Man of the Ocean and the enemy of Eome 
that his dashes into the outer zone around home 
were projected. 

But if the rustic sports at summer-tide are re- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 3 

stricted, it is different with those of winter in the 
North. 

The snow piles up in the erst verdant vales and 
the rivers run under thickest ice. 

It is stated that the daring couple ended one 
attempt to cross their Alps in a snow-drift ; when 
the children were rescued, Mary had such an unro- 
mantic cold that she was a week in bed, though the 
hardier little Carthaginian escaped, as the ring- 
leaders often do while the followers are less lucky. 

At the close of winter occurs in this region the 
great spectacle of the breaking np of the frost-bound 
rivers. The ice-gorges blow up, the natural dams 
burst, the firm surface, over which an artillery train 
might have passed at a gallop, becomes '^ pumpy,'' 
or leathery, and only a snow-bird would, one thinks, 
care to flit along the treacherous skin. 

This is the very time, because it is franght with 
dangers, and death walks by the side like a mis- 
guarding angel, when the Vermont youth disport 
on the shivered slabs of ice and attempt passages to 
which are mere everyday affairs such glacial cross- 
ings as AVashington^s over the Delaware and Napoleon 
over the Beresina. 

After the rivers, the Onion and its main tributary 
at Montpelier, force the splintered ice blocks to leave 
the town clear and dam up the stream at a point 
half a dozen miles below, it was the amusement — 
and may still be so — to mount a floating fragment 
and sail down to land, more or less in jeopardy all 
the course, on this hazardous resting-place — for at 
any moment this temporary barrier might give way 
and proceed on its nltimate ''fast, winding way to 
the sea." 

The smaller the cake, the more grand the feat, so 
it is reckoned in this Eeat of the American Fjords ; 
therefore, the adventurer who managed to keep his 



14 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

footing on a base so small that his weight more or 
less deeply submerged it, would take the palm. 
Dewey, already favorite of the river-gods, and to be 
that of the oceanic divinity, was foremost in these 
Arctic jousts and tilts. He above all could balance 
on the merest pedestal, navigate it amidst other 
bergs, neither let one piece slide upon his and sub- 
merge it, or another under-ride and capsize him ; he 
would dodge a bridge pediment and shoot a rapid at 
a pier, steer from eddies where the unfortunate were 
stayed and spun round and round until their heads 
also swam; he would execute curves around short 
bends and in and out of " hooks," which were the 
terrors of the year's talk to his comrades. 

But, at least once, the water turned upon him 
and he retired, for the first and only time, defeated. 

This was in the summer, when he was a little 
more than eleven. He had a chum with him, for 
he has always been attended by a faithful companion, 
which shows what a sociable heart is in this indom- 
itable son of Neptune. They set out in the family 
buggy, which was so well known throughout the 
section from bearing the doctor on his errands of 
aid. The pair were supposed to go 'Safter the 
cows," that diurnal task at which many a New Eng- 
land lad has revolted and urged as ample cause of 
his running away to sea ! But the rain had fallen 
torrentuously and swollen a creek into avast volume 
at which Redfield, the associate, shrank without 
reason to blame him. He would have advised a re- 
turn trip, but he knew too well how headstrong was 
his companion. Indeed, George just gathered up 
the reins and put old Dobbin to the rush at the 
ford, like Alexander riding Bucephalus into the 
Granious. 

At the first plunge, the steed lost footing and the 
weight of the boys separated the body of the carriage 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 15 

from the axle. Foreseeing some such disaster, the 
passengers had sprung out forward and clung to the 
back and neck of the animal, prudently already 
turning for the shore, while the upper-works of the 
buggy were hurried away. The boys, limp as their 
wet rags, reached home cold and shivering. Red- 
field dropped off and slunk into his house, while the 
other got home after dark, without saying a word 
about cows or vehicle. For a wonder he refused 
sapper and took advantage of his father being absent 
on a professional engagement to ensconce himself 
between the sheets in his own bedroom. 

This disappearance, and the unusual disrespect to 
the evening meal, to say nothing of Dobbin's having 
mysteriously dispensed with his equipage, excited 
the doctor's fears when he arrived home ; he ran up 
to question his son, but from the other side of the 
prudently fastened door, the boy, pretending to be 
awakened when reproached with his rashness, of 
which Redfield had given an inkling, ingeniously 
replied : 

'' Some fathers would be glad their boy was 

spared ! " 

Dewev, Pater, decided that it was time that 
school should open its portals for the future Nelson 
of America. Home rearing and a boy's circum- 
scribed library do not amply fit a youth for the wide 
world. But it was an evil hour for learning. The 
county grammar school was apparently spoiled by 
the inability to obtain a Dr. Arnold, a Dwight or 
any one to draw out the ingots from the dross rather 
than separate the knob of pure gold which had little 
needed the flame and the crucible. In a word, the 
school had sunk to a low stage. The teacher ap- 
pointed about the time when Dewey was to be tried 
was one Zen as K. Pangborn, who lives to this day 
not merely to tell of the following career-forming 



I6 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

event, but to be foremost to greet his eminent pupil 
as lie received the national welcome. 

Mr. Paiigborn, graduating from a college, was 
struck with amaze at the absence of order in the 
school assigned to his book and rod. The fault with 
the intermediate schools of that period was the want 
of a proper outlet : most of the boys were required 
to assist their parents at the plow, the counter or the 
work-bench, so that parents and pupils felt that high 
finish to their useful training was over the head of 
their destiuation. A normal school might have 
taken the percentage who should have finished in 
the higher courses and have been put in positions 
the better to serve the city, their state and the 
country. 

Mr. Pangborn ho])ed to redeem the ills, and, to 
begin with, studied the pupils. They were in a con- 
dition of insubordination which cruelty and domi- 
neering had incited and ignorance and lack of 
sympathy with the seething youth had fostered. In 
all the ceaseless rebellion, aimed at authority merely 
because it was uppermost, George Dewey was fore- 
most, the crest on the wave. 

Mr. Pangborn was warned that several of his fore- 
goers had been forced to quit by reason of the over- 
bearing acts of this stripling, one whose frank, 
hearty and manly mien inspired good-will in any one 
truly a guide for rising spirits. 

It was plain that unless he, the teacher, were 
also to resign, the post would be one of misery to 
the newcomer. So Mr. Pangborn promptly resolved 
to seize the first emergency and crush all opposition 
to authority once and forever. 

Scholars are apt to test the humor of a pedagogue 
by decoying him into joining in their sports, notably, 
^' knuckle-all-over," a sort of free-for-all game with 
a ball, which is to be thrown by the holder at any 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 7 

one whom he chooses to make his mark. Kow, if 
the schoolmaster finds, as soon as he will, that he is 
almost continually the target, he has but two courses 
— to stop the game and acknowledge he is no master 
at so one-sided a pastime, or to get the ball as often 
as he can and ^* fire " it with his superior strength to 
give the boys the worst of it. 

The Dewey battalion did not try the base-ball but 
one of the pure and innocent snow, familiar in 
winter. Snow did not suffice them, but they must 
need saturate the same in water, which, freezing, 
makes the missile about as hard as a cannon-ball. 

On seeing this unfairness, which portended some- 
thing more than common prejudice, the school- 
master called a truce, but it was only to have the 
return charge more in his own domain, and with his 
own professional weapons. 

He had not long to wait the second bout. 

George, on being taken to task for an offense, 
answered with an expression bordering on profanity 
in a schoolroom, and certainly disres'pectful. He 
was immediately commanded to offer an apology to 
teacher and class, and promise to behave properly 
in the future or receive a thrashing. 

This was the era when the rattan had displaced 
the birch and the cat, and was itself jostled aside by 
the truly native cowhide, which hung at the wrist 
of Mr. Pangborn. 

The rebel looked at the speaker and concluded 
that he was not so bad a match for a little man of 
less than a hundred-weight ; he impudently repeated 
his offensive phrase instead of withdrawing and 
making amends. This was a '" standing to his 
guns," which the boys applauded in a murmur 
rather than a shout, for all felt that a crisis had 
come. 

The crisis descended instantly upon the attractor 

2 



l8 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

of the thunderbolt, for the '' little" disciplinarian 
was upon him, seizing his arm and brandishing the 
whip. 

To use the principal's own words : 

" The next instant, I and that rawhide were 
winding and tosshig around Dewey like the fire of 
one of those warships which have made his name 
famous the world over. I was little and slender, but 
so also was the rawhide, and the two of us so 
demoralized Dewey that almost before I was aware 
of it, he was lying in a heap on the floor. He was 
bleeding from a wound in the hand, and whimpering 
as any boy would on receiving so tremendous a 
thrashing. He was conquered, while I glared over 
his prostrate form at the other rebellious spirits in 
the school." 

"Well, these schoolmates adored their chief. Their 
surprise at his being thrown down was so extreme 
that they were motionless for a w^hile. But, on re- 
covering, half a dozen of them rushed down the row 
of desks, with blood in their eyes. However, that of 
their ill-treated Mentor was also up to boiling. 
Pangborn was by the pile of firewood (built, as you 
know, with the contributions of the parents of pupils 
and brought by armsful each morning as part j^ay- 
ment of their tuition). Seizing one billet, he 
brought it down on the head of the first comer and 
felled him so that he became a bar to the advance of 
the rest, who, however, paused. 

The victorious master bade them take their seats, 
and as they did so, the revolt was quelled. 

As soon as damages were repaired, Dewey was 
ordered home, but straightway followed by Pangborn 
and the boys, as witnesses and curious lookers-on. 

Dr. Dewey took the heads of this curious proces- 
sion into his parlor and heard the tale, besides pro- 
fessionally examining the weals on his son. He 



t)F ADMIRAL IDEWEY. ig 

was a just man, for he considered that he had been 
meetly punished, and it was intimated that if he 
thought he was not fully done by, he, the sire, 
would make up the missing stripes. The next day, 
when the scholars expected a "scene" after the 
former event, George gravely walked up to the 
master and handsomely said : 

" Father and I have talked the matter over. We 
both have come to the conclusion that you did 
exactly right. I thank you for it." 

The trouble was all over and schoolmaster and 
pupil became fast friends. When the conqueror of 
the Dons came up New York harbor in his warship, 
Pangborn pulled the lock of one of the cannon of 
Jersey which saluted the idol of the multitudes. 

It is said that '' there is no gamekeeper so good as 
the reformed poacher." After this " taking down" 
as the bully of the school George became the re- 
pressor of the would-be tyrants of the class-room and 
plavground. It is a matter of record that, while at 
his^ school, he now aided the cause of order ; his 
moral strength increased to vie with his courage and 
physical prowess. Above all, he had learned that 
valuable maxim : Tell the truth, though it tells 
against you ! 

For some years this pleasant relation existed, and 
who can doubt that it was the turning-point for 
the aspiring youth ? 

His range of reading widened under this tutelage; 
and his expanding mind found recreation in theatri- 
cals. He had built a miniature stage in the house, 
and, with his sister before mentioned, acted the 
minor drama. The manager was chief actor, author, 
stage-director and the like, and his solitary "star " 
lady had to play all the female parts, often at short 
notice. 

One time, her inability to learn her Imes in that 



20 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

"brief interval popularly called '' less than no time/' 
was so glaring that she pleaded for a putting off of 
the play. But Manager Dewey, sorry that he could 
not oblige but characteristically determined '' not to 
disappoint the public/' assured her that he had a 
way out of it. Whenever she was at a loss for a 
^ord— '' stuck/' in the vernacular— he would cover 
the gap. 

Thus assured, she proceeded with her part. At 
the first breakdown, George fired off a pistol, and 
her stammering passed uncriticized in the smoke. 
This sort of piece, fiery words and mock thunder, 
might have gone on for a long run, but that the 
neighbors, hearing too much of this miniature 
Vesuvius, protested to the head of the household, 
and the truly sensational drama was suppressed. 

The Thespians were reduced to parodies on the 
circus, waxworks and concerts, for the future. ^ 

But the day soon came for more serious business. 
George, having profited by not only the first but the 
after lessons of Mr. Pangborn during several years, 
was sent, in 1851, to Northfield, Vt., where he was 
to be trained for entrance into West Point, at a 
noted military academy called the '' Norwich." 

Here he almost instantly leaped into popularity 
akin to that he had enjoyed at Montpelier. 

Brimming with animal spirits, he was the leader 
in those diversions which beguile college tedium, 
and are winked at by the superiors within certain 
limits, as they allow the release of superfluous 
ardor. 

He became " captain" of a company, and as such 
made a mark in a noted ''brush" with the Dart- 
mouth College students. 

He was seventeen when he quitted the military 
college, without having taken a strong liking for 
that branch of the United Services, for the other ex- 




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OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 2t 

treme : the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The pre- 
destined American Nelson was not to be a AYellington 
that was clear. ' 

The trial for this cadetship lay between him and a 
gentleman who failed to pass the physical test and 
became a minister in the Church, while Dewey, thus 
befriended by chance, entered the career of which 
he was intended to be one of the brightest ornaments. 



CHAPTER 11. 

m PEACE PEEPARE FOR WAR.— A PRICELESS AU- 
TOGRAPH.— Ilf ''THE 3IIDDLE SEA.''— THE AC- 
COMPLISHED PARROT.— THE ALARUM OF WAR ! 

Ai^:NrAPOLis is the meet seat of nurture for man to 
be wedded to the Sea. On every hand, memorials of 
one kind or another remind of the lives to be imi- 
tated of Paul Jones, Preble, Perry, Decatur, and the 
later wielders of the cutlass and saber. Models of 
vessels, paintings of naval actions, never to be effaced 
from history's tablets, adorn the walls, and imple- 
ments of war, perhaps more or less obsolete, decorate 
the grounds where nervous candidates paced, the 
sward bare, while awaiting the decision making or 
marring the emulator of Hull, Foote or Farragut. 

Dewey had no sooner set foot on this sacred ground, 
where no hostile hand had been raised since the 
British burned Old Washington, than he must have 
felt that he had acted rightly in choosing the mari- 
time branch of the dual armed service. 

But at this moment there was more stir about 
than befitted a seminary for study of naval cipher, 
artillery signaling at sea and aquatic maneuvers. 

Those ancient traditions of academies which favor 



22 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

practical jokes, mock secret societies, " hazing," 
horse-play, and the like, were still current. The 
senior officers were of the type read of in Marryatt^s 
and Cheever^s stories, and thought honestly that no 
boy would turn out fit for the sea without a long 
ordeal of rougli sport. Hard knocks, scant fare, 
harsh usage — these were all items in the regular pro- 
gram of ^^ Jack's play." This has been altered, but 
only recently. ^' Hazing" still lingers, though evi- 
dently doomed to go out with salt junk, rope's- 
endings, keel-hauling and such barbarities. 

Therefore, althougli young Dewey bore generally 
the rej)utation of a quiet, steady, amiable, even an 
ordinary cadet, his bellicose temper was often drawn 
upon, and several fights stand to his account. Col- 
onel James Morgan, a contemporary, says : 

^* In his class in the Naval Academy Dewey was 
always at the top of everything, except his studies. 
He was a splendid athlete, a boxer and a fencer. 
One thing he hated like the Arch-Enemy hates holy 
water was a bully. Though far from being quarrel- 
some himself, he would hunt a fight with any fellow 
who attempted to impose upon his inferiors in phys- 
ical strength. Any town boy who developed a repu- 
tation as a bully was sure to fall foul of George Dewey, 
and to get a licking, too. I don't think he was ever 
beaten in a fight." 

The Irrepressible Conflict w^as then in fomenta- 
tion. As happened at the brother nursing-place of 
our future heroes — West Point — Annapolis had its 
two camps, as was the case all over *' My Maryland." 
Some of the youths, feeling on sympathetic ground, 
flaunted the cause of Secession constantly before the 
other party, and all those taunts which have happily 
been entombed in congenial dust flew about like 
motes in the sun. 

Dewey, however, was not the one to chafe at 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 23 

words ; it is a trait of the Anglo-Saxon that, above 
all races, he can endure that galling attack of pigmy- 
darts called " chaff," or banter. The aim in this 
dubious sport is to say all calculated to goad a wearer 
to fury, and then calmly propose his shaking hands 
over it and letting it pass as mere fun. Hence, 
George heard with unruffled front such epithets as 
'-Yankee,'' '^dough-face," '^ mudsill," etc. But 
when it came to booby-traps, rulers and inkstands 
hurled in the dark, '^ apple-pie " beds and the rest 
of the instruments of college torture, he called a 
halt. The result of the sudden halt was that the 
chief tormentor ran np against his victim's fist and 
rose demoralized. 

A blow was a fearful thing to the young bloods of 
the 'Sixties : the unavoidable outcome among those 
who wore swords, and were exercised in the use of 
them, was a duel. 

Fortunately a cooler head let the officer of the day 
into the current of what was being arranged, and the 
proposed encounter with small-swords was nipped in 
the bud. 

Although not remarkable for his studies except in 
seamanship and gunnery, which are not, by the 
way, non-essentials in a naval officer's outfit. Cadet 
George passed fifth in a set of fourteen, the survi- 
vors of an original class of sixty-five. The gradua- 
tion dates in 1858. 

The little exuberances of animal spirits were not 
set down against him : the professors know that the 
cord which binds too tightly snaps of itself. 

The new-fledged officer always retained a warm 
memory of his Alma Mater. The University Club 
building on Fifth Avenue, New York, is adorned on 
the front with marble medallions representing the 
arms of the national services, and one bears the 
crest of the Naval Academy. The committee of the 



24 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Annapolis Alumni directed tlie chairman. Com- 
mander , to write to all the past members for con- 
tributions, and, of course, Dewey was preeminently 
included. He was, then, the Admiral. 

The commander wrote, apprising him of the 
scheme, and intimating that the admiral's assessment 
was six dollars and some odd cents. The admiral sent 
a letter by return mail with his check for ten dollars 

enclosed. Commander opened this letter in the 

smoking-room of the Club one evening and, as there 
were several Annapolis men present, he read it aloud. 
There was the most respectful silence until the reader 
came to the passage: '^I enclose my check for ten 
dollars which," etc., when some one broke in with : 

^SSay, I'll give you fifty for that check !" 

^'^ Fifty nothings ! I'll give you a hundred ! " 

" Hundred V fifty ! " 

"Hwo hundred!" *^ Three hundred!" ^'Four 
hundred ! " 

The commander put the check in his pocket, as 
an invaluable autograph. 

Just as the movements of swimming can be learned 
on the driest of dry land, so may naval evolutions be 
studied with a toy ship on a table, for landsmen 
have devised excellent plans of operation for fleets 
in battle ; Napoleon the Great, though emphatically 
no lover of the sea, astonished the English ship 
officers, when he was conducted by them to St. 
Helena, by solving the most complicated problems of 
navigation. 

The Academy not only equips the student for his 
profession, but smooths the way for his putting the 
learning into practise on the high seas. 

h\ consequence, our young disciple was placed on 
Captain Barren's flag-ship in our Mediterranean 
squadron, and there sailed to and fro during the years 
1857 and '58. 



Of admiral DEWEY. 2$ 

It was a dream of the Yankee youth realized, and 
yet in that poetical atmosphere vision seemed yet to 
behold a dream. But if that ''sea of blue "is the 
theater of the bards, it is also the field of naval 
battles. Here the living lighthouse of ^tna il- 
lumined the wake of the Roman galleys hasting to 
destroy Carthage, just as, years after, the purest of 
moons and the brightest of stars lit up the conflicts 
of pirates,— sallying out of Tunisian and Tripolitan 
ports, dens of the sea-snakes, and true descendants 
of Hamilcar and Hannibal— with all Christendom- 
nay, all humankind, which their outrages had turned 
against them. Severally, their pestilent feluccas 
were assailed by the French, the Spanish, the Eng- 
lish and the Americans. Our young officer knew by 
heart how forbears of his classmates had figured 
with Decatur at the singeing of the Dey's beard ! 

The tricolor of France floated from Algerian forts 
now, but it had taken centuries to avenge the defeat 
of Henry of Navarre's son, on yon yellow and glaring 
plains. Those blear and horizonless views inspired 
the poem which is Dewey's favorite : 

" The pilgrim and stranger, who through the day 
Holds over the desert his trackless way." 

Here frowns the Keeper of ''the Great Sea'' of 
Scripture : Gibraltar, the Impregnable Fortress 
which, however, the English took in 1704, and con- 
tinue to hold, having made it truly impregnable this 
time— a constant taunt in the teeth of the Spaniards 
who lost it. 

Here, crossed the Crusaders to take Acre, alter 
years of siege and the loss of 300,000 men ; there. 
Napoleon's Army of Egypt was beaten by Sir Sydney 
Smith and his fancy of being a Sultan of the Land of 
the Sphynx annihilated as by the simoom. 

Yonder, the Republic of Venice rose and fell ; at 



26 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

that spot, the Colossus of Rhodes caught the dazzling 
morning sun over the African desert and Jason 
steered Argo amid the Scyllas and Charybdii. 

Upon those rocks waved the emblems of the 
Knights of Malta ; and renegades led the Turks to 
their own birthplaces to rive away their own re- 
nounced kindred to be slaves in the Dey's gardens. 

Little did the young captain imagine, however 
high his ambition — although he 

" Gazed aloft upon the star that heroes glory in, 
And sometimes deemed it not too far for even him to win!" 

Little could he imagine that, one day, he would sail 
in his own flag-ship past these monuments and be a 
welcome guest in all the ports, saving the Spanish ! 

He had also some acquaintance with another sea, 
while on the South American Station, where he had 
occasion to evince this presence of mind and imper- 
turbation. 

Like a good many ship captains whose grandeur 
compels them to lead a life reserved from their 
officers, his captain had found companionship in a 
parrot of great beauty and endearing ways, if it were 
not remarkable as a linguist. 

Being much worried about its health, he asked the 
ship^'s doctor to prescribe, and the latter expressed 
the opinion that all the bird needed was a chance to 
climb into the green trees on shore, chew bark, and 
disport itself. 

So the captain summoned his steward and bade 
him take the parrot ashore and give it some exercise. 
The captain's steward was an important person 
then. This one was a conceited old darky, who aped 
absurdly the authoritative ways of his master, and 
the men were always on the lookout for a chance to 
play him some trick. When he stepped to the port 
gangway to get into the liberty boat, with the cage 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 2/ 

containing the bird enclosed in an old ammunition 
bag, they saw their opportunity. There was a sea 
running in the harbor, which made it difficult for 
the boat to keep alongside, and just as the steward 
put out a foot toward the gunwale, they purposely 
eased her off, so that he tumbled into the sea. He 
was pulled out in a minute, but the parrot and the 
cage went to the bottom. 

The steward was distressed. He dreaded punish- 
ment by the captain, who had said that he would 
hold him responsible for the safety of the bird. 
Having shore-leave for three days, he spent his time 
wandering about the city and figuring to himself 
how he would put in the balance of the voyage in 
the ship's brig, on bread and water, double-ironed, 
and exposed to the derision of the crew. At length he 
was prompted by one of his kind officers, to whom he 
applied in his quandary, and whose name need not 
be mentioned, with a brilliant idea. 

Rio was full of parrots, and one parrot is much like 
another, especially green ones. He bought, for 
seventy-five cents, a green bird with a yellow head 
which'looked to him like the twin brother of the one 
drowned. He was also lucky enough to find a cage 
like the lost one, and in it took his precious purchase 
back to the frigate. 

Now (as Dewey tells the story ), the captain was 
delighted to see his pet once more, and especially to 
see how much its plumage was improved and how 
much more sprightly it had become. But his 
astonishment may be imagined when, being asked 
whether it would' like a cracker, the bird responded 
with a string of Portuguese profanity. Being fed, it 
expressed its satisfaction with a lot of ugly words in 
Spanish, and this so amazed the commander that lie 
felt obliged to share his feelings with somebody. 
Lieutenant Dewey, who had been walking the quarter- 



28 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

deck, was summoned to the cabin, and the parrot 
was persuaded to utter some more iuelegancies for 
his benefit. 

** Mr. Dewey/' said the captain excitedly, " that is 
a most remarkable bird. He has been ashore only 
three days, and in that time, upon my sacred honor, 
he has picked up a thorough working knowledge of 
the Spanish and Portuguese languages." 

Those who remember the accomplished tasks of 
the old school of soldiers, tlie Murats, Neys, Berna- 
dottes, Moreaus, who were flung as boys into the 
whirl of the most active warfare, and were captains 
at twenty, look a little scoffingly at the elaborate 
preparation demanded by the modern profession of 
arms : everything has changed, from the tactics to 
the weapons. No one now plans fighting at close 
quarters, with Gatling guns and repeating rifles ; 
an officer may, like ^' Chinese " Gordon, have as 
little use for the cane which he carries instead of a 
sword, as the steel itself ; the officer who directs 
the discharge of a gun carrying twelve or more miles 
has no need of tlie telescope which sufficed for a 
Wellington — he must be drilled in science and use a 
range-finder. 

So the cadet's technical and scientific apprentice- 
ship was absolutely necessary to his future, as we 
know. Havelock was over thirty years waiting for 
his opportunity to become the Deliverer of the be- 
sieged British in India. 

When General Napier was Governor of Scinde, he 
wrote to a young ensign words which should be 
chiseled on a stone or brazen tablet on the walls of a 
military or naval academy : 

'' By reading professional books you will discover 
what is faulty in your corps, if faults thero are ; 
you will then learn how things ought to be, and will 
by daily observation see how they are. Thus you 



OF ADMIRAL DEWE\. 29 

can form comparisons which will in time teach you 
your profession. 

'' Keep up all knowledge that you have acquired, 
and gain as much more as you can. By reading you 
will be distinguished ; without it abilities are of little 
use. A man may talk and write, but he cannot learn 
his profession without constant study to prepare ; 
especially for the higher ranks, because there he 
wants the knowledge and experience of others im- 
proved by his own. 

" But when in a post of responsibility he has no 
time to read, and if he comes to such a post with an 
empty skull, it is then too late to fill it, and he makes 
no figure. Thus many people fail to distinguish 
themselves and say they are unfortunate, which is 
untrue ; their own previous idleness has unfitted 
them to profit from fortune. 

'^The smith who has to look for his hammer when 
the iron is red strikes too late ; the hammer should 
be uplifted to fall like a thunderbolt while the white 
heat is in the metal. Thus will the forging prosper.''' 

The blade was duly tempered : George Dewey was 
made ready for the loftiest exploit of the ages. 

In 1860, in accordance with the wise curriculum 
of our Naval Preparatory School, Dewey returned to 
his college to pass the examination to show how he 
had profited not only by his instruction there but by 
that even more important one upon the deep. This 
time he was no longer among ''the four figures'' — 
he led his compeers. Taking into consideration his 
previous rating, this triumphant return earned him 
the rank of Passed Midshipman and he was posted 
as Third in his class. 

He could take a last stroll under the academical 
groves with the step of one who had the world as a 
football at his foot. 

Before bein^ called to duty — which seemed not to 



30 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

be onerous, since America was apparently prof onndly 
submerged in peace — he enjoyed a rest at the old 
homestead in Vermont. 
But soon — 

" The trumpet's voice has roused the land ! " 



CHAPTER III. 

ON THE MISSISSIPPI. — SHARKS FOND OF THE NAVY. 
— THE FIERY ORDEAL. — GOING DOWN BY HIS 
GUNS. — OFFICIAL PRAISE. — " STAND IN AND 
WIN ! " 

Seldom had befallen an aspirant to the Blue Rib- 
bon of the Sea a finer opportunity. 

In the spring of 1861 Fort Sumter had been fired 
upon by the Confederates massed at Charleston, S. C, 
and the first cannon-shot led the fusillade never ceas- 
ing to echo from the sea to the Mississippi and from 
the Potomac to the Gulf, until the last ; that an- 
nouncing to a world weary of slaughter the surren- 
der of General Lee, at Appomattox Court-house, 
1865. 

However eagerly the youth of the fervid South 
adopted the desperate endeavor, the elder U. S. A. 
and Navy officers withdrew with the deepest regret 
from hallowed comradeships and carried a pang at 
the heart with them when they went to pledge 
allefriance to the new-born Stars and Bars. 

This desertion in a body left a huge gap in the 
lists of officers, naval and military, and opened it to 
the cadets and scarcely " passed " pupils. To fill it 
up, all the budding Jasons were called to posts which 
might not have been earned in twenty years, and 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 3I 

some will recall with what avidity the appointments 
were received. 

Oh, the first pair of epaulets — the first time a 
sword-sash is girded on ! 

Not more than a week had elapsed after the attack 
of Snmter before George Dewey, who was already 
entitled to the office of '* master/^ a sort of second- 
lieutenancy, now canceled, was sent, post-haste, his 
commission as lieutenant, and a berth was assigned 
to him simultaneously. 

Convenient to him, as he was at home on a fur- 
lough, in Boston Harbor, was lying the steam sloop- 
of-war the Mississij)j)i — name of augury ! — under 
command of Captain Melancton Smith. 

That was to be his floating abode for a time, his 
initiatory stage for nautical warfare. 

She sailed without delay, as soon as her comple- 
ment was totaled up — no one flinched from a call, 
be sure ! — and was speedily in the warm waters of the 
Gulf of Mexico. 

There was a little idleness — if ever there may be 
idleness on a man-of-war Avhen the captain is dili- 
gent ! The time was spent in renewing old college 
reminiscences, getting the ropes by actual handling, 
and capping stories, mostly of the amusing blunders 
of " raw " seamen. 

There was always a roar of laughter at the mistake 
of the gunner from Cape Cod, on board the Bain- 
hridge, who was chasing a Confederate craft in the 
night — the chosen time for blockade-runners to pur- 
sue their vocation. This gunner saw a light and let 
fly at it. Nothing came of it and the light disap- 
peared — it might be supposed that the shell had burst 
in the fugitive's internals and sunk her forthwith. 
But an officer, acquainted with the locality, came 
down from aloft, whither l;e had mounted with his 
marine-glass, and solemnly said : 



^2 tHE LIFE AND CAREEk 

'^ We fired at the Morning Star ! " 

" Lucifer— how hast thou fallen ! " The morn- 
ing star, in those latitudes, appears, at rising, 
scarce a moment above the waters, and then vanishes 
out of sight. The derided artillerist had unluckily 
caught poor Lucifer on the skip, but the cannon-ball 
had not touched the orb, only some millions of miles 
beyond the porthole ! 

While they were thus resting in Mobile Bay, 
Dewey was, as the junior officer of the watch, 
making the acquaintance of the crew, so far as an 
officer is allowed — or, better to say, encouraged — for 
he is loved best and can lead his men farthest who 
is properly known to them. All born leaders have had 
the art to be familiar without inspiring lack of respect. 

He even chatted with that privileged ship's gossip, 
the '' Doctor," otherwise, the cook. 

This was a superstitious old negro who had a 
morbid dread of sharks, which Dewey argued would 
never bite a human being. 

One day Dewey was sent ashore in the ship's 
dingey on some trifling duty. He had on, as usual, 
a frock coat with very long tails, such as all naval 
officers wore in those days. In obedience to orders, 
he hurried back, the sloop being on the point of 
getting under weigh, and as he sat in the stern of 
the skiff, his coat tails trailed in the water. Just as 
the dingey was on the point of reaching the 
Mississijjpi, a shark rose to the surface — perhaps at- 
tracted by the gilt buttons on the coat tails^ afore- 
said — and bit off the starboard side of the lieuten- 
ant's after uniform. Dewey jumped to his feet, and, 
well satisfied under the circumstances to relinquish 
his coat tails, ran up the side of the ship. The 
''Doctor," who had viewed the proceedings from 
the rail of the vessel, approached him presently with 
a grin of the utmost width. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 33 

''Ah, ha!" he said, taking advantage of the 
familiarity customarily allowed him on board. 
" Perhaps, Massa Dewey, yo^ believe now dat sharks 
won't bite a pusson. Whar' yo' coat tail, eh ? '' 

''My coat tail," replied the lieutenant, with his 
habitual coolness, ''has been removed by an act of 
Providence." 

At the opening of 1862, the ships of the West Gulf 
Blockading Squadron assembled around the flag-ship, 
the Hartford, on which Captain David Glasgow 
Farragut had raised his flag. The "Father of 
Waters" was the stronghold of the Confederacy of 
revolted states. 

Having no sea-going fleet and no means of raising 
one, since the European powers could not sell with- 
out recognizing the Rebellion, a measure from which 
they wisely shrank without tempting such a lesson 
of warning as was given France anent Mexico, the 
Confederate States placed all reliance and hope on 
" the Backbone of the Rebellion," the mighty river 
which, fortified and always open to navigation, pre- 
vented the most successful land-general from ex- 
2oecting to win unless he could control it, not merely 
at its mouth but throughout its vast extent. 

Nevertheless, to take the Delta at New Orleans 
required the capture of forts, much more formidable 
than those which General Jackson had directed when 
repulsing the British, and the river would have to 
be cleared of earthworks, flotillas, fireships and 
other obstacles all the way to Vicksburg, where the 
Union army was to be found awaiting the naval 
cooperation. 

The American fleet sailed in January, but it was 
not until April, 1862, that the movement was made 
against the " Crescent City." 

In the meantime, the ships were kept active, — 
large and small. There were expeditions in several 
3 



34 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

directions, destroying munitions, victuals and sup- 
plies for the city ; petty batteries along shore were 
leveled, batteries on the bluffs were shelled, the sugar 
and molasses factories were burnt and stores dumped 
into the river ; and turpentine and tar heaped 
into gorgeous bonfires lest the enemy used them for 
infernal machines ; one in particular being a fire-raft 
— an engine to which the Greek fire-ships and tlie 
Chinese explosive junks were simple annoyances. 

All this added to Dewey's experience and he was 
ready as his shipmates when the order to advance 
was spread to the wind. 

There was newness in the vessels to attack — gun- 
boats had been invented by the English to operate 
against Cronstadt in the Crimean War, and those 
which Constructor Eads launched might be con- 
sidered experimental ; the Confederates had quickly 
borrowed the pattern. This year, 18G2, saw also 
the noteworthy innovation of the floating, iron- 
shielded battery, of the Merrimac type, as well as its 
conqueror, the'^still more novel Monitor. The French 
had inaugurated these modern improvements on the 
ancient galleys, along whose sides, it will be seen, 
the warriors used to fasten their bucklers to clothe 
them with metal and leather against projectiles of 
their period. 

Farragut's plan was to run by the forts in the 
dark ; but the enemy, by means of fires on the banks 
and rafts blazing with combustibles upon the muddy 
waters, prevented any such surprise. It was, there- 
fore, compulsorv to silence the forts of Chalmette, 
St. Philip and "Jackson, these being about thirty 
miles above the heads of the passes. 

It was early in the morning, though, when the 
vessels got under way to run the fiery gauntlet. The 
Hartford, leading the second division, opened her 
bow guns on Fort Jackson, receiving a heavy fire 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 35 

from both forts. In attempting to avoid a fire-raft 
she grounded on a shoal near St. Philip, and at the 
same time the rebel ram Manasses pushed a blazing 
raft upon her port quarter, setting her on fire. The 
Manasses was named after a battlefield of the early 
stage of the War, Avhich the Confederates esteemed 
their victory. While she backed into deep water her 
crew subdued the flames, her guns, meanwhile, pour- 
ing a steady fire into the enemy. 

"There we were, my lad, 
All afire on our port quarter ! 
Hammocks ablaze in the netting, 
Flames spouting in at every port— 
Our fourth cutter burning at the davit 
(No chance to lower away and save it), 
In a twinkling the flames had risen 
Half way to maintop and mizzen, 
Darting up the shrouds like snakes I 
Ah, how we clanked at the brakes. 
And the deep steam pump throbbed under, 
Sending a ceaseless flow." 

With difficulty the Hartford turned against the 
current and continued on her way up the river, fir- 
ing into the enemy's vessels as she passed. Among 
them was a " boarder " making straight for the flag. 
A shell from the Hartford exploded in her and she 

disappeared. 7 7 i i • -i 

The Mississippi and the Monongaliela had similar 

experiences. 

Before davlight the victory was complete ; and the 
fleet, after reducing the Chalmette batteries three 
miles below New Orleans, proceeded directly to that 
city, whence the Confederate forces had already taken 
flight. ^. ^, 

During the weeks immediately succeeding the 
capture of New Orleans the Mississippi resumed its 
efforts, with the other smaller craft, '^to clear the 



river." 



2/S THE LIFE AND CAREER 

The minor obstacles being swept away, the next 
series of difficulties was to be encountered. 

It took three days to beat down these barriers ; it 
was on the 23d that the vessels could have a breath- 
ing-spell after this plunge into the furnace where 
wooden walls were consumed like wool and iron 
melted like lead in the smelting-pot. 

Farragut had resolved to charge the next obstacle. 
It was a time to '' strike or be struck/' as the Great 
Napoleon said of a like situation. 

This was Port Hudson, which, captured, would 
enable the American fleet to shut up the important 
Eed River ; but not only were the preparations for 
repelling attacks admitted to be gigantic, but the 
hindrances to navigation, as readers of Mississippi 
pilot-lore will be sure, were enormous and ter- 
rible. 

On March the 14th, 1863, the fleet gathered like 
war-birds, around the chief eagle, for Dewey's second 
big battle. 

At dusk all was deep darkness save for a red lan- 
tern at the stern of the Hartford signifying the ad- 
vance into battle. 

It was very calm. 

The vessels moved slowly but steadily, and on the 
rebel lookouts sighting the long phantom-like line, 
they sent up a rocket or two, and immediately the 
shore batteries began firing at the flag-ship. Tins 
was an hour before midnight. At first the ship- 
gunners had to take aim at the flashes of the shore 
guns which were hidden by the earthworks, but the 
smoke began to thicken in the stagnant air. Then 
this close vapor was split and streaked as the 13-inch 
shells whirled through magnificent showers of their 
own sparks, and bonfires sprang into splendor along 
the grand waterway ! Never since the great earth- 
quake early in the century had these forests and 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 37 

blnffs echoed to such a crash as when the larger 
vessels delivered a broadside. 

After having been under fire over an hour, the 
leader ran ahead and anchored up-stream beyond 
range, having lost little in men but being seriously 
damaged. Those of lier escort able to get away 
dropped down the river to recuperate. 

Dewey's ship was not amoug the fortunate. 

At half -after eleven, in the fog, smoke and gloom, 
the general attack being in full force, the Essex 
dropped down the river, and being taken for hostile 
by the Mississippi, would have been demolished by 
her broadside, but it was withheld by a miracle of 
instinct rather than actual perception. The Mis- 
sissippi, as third in the order of battle, was to keep 
touch, so to say, with the Monongaliela, which was 
shrouded in the obscurity. So Dewey's ship was 
going ahead fast, arriving at the heaviest and fiercest 
of the shore works, when she touched bottom and 
heeled over markedly. 

This was just between midnight and the first 
hour. 

The guns and weights were shifted, and steam 
was put on, but she was for the time inextricably 
caught by that treacherous and tenacious mud 
making the Mississippi a very graveyard of vessels. 
All hope of salvage being lost, the commander ordered 
those things to be done which comprise the last 
measures on abandoning a ship in the enemy's teeth. 
The pivot-gun was rolled over the side ; the others 
were spiked. The munitions at hand and the small 
arms were thrown into the mud. 

At the same time, the enemy obtained the range 
and directed the cross-fires of three batteries at the 
disabled and dismantled sloop. Under this shower 
the sick and wounded were lowered into the boats. 

Dewey had stood with his men to his own gun 



38 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

until the water was up to the muzzle, firing the last 
shot — the last retort of the defeated war-dog- 
through the porthole by which he had to make his 
escape. 

He and his captain, Smith, are stated to have been 
the two coolest spirits on the wreck. On his way to 
the boats containing the invalided and non-combat- 
ants, Dewey saved the life of a shipmate, drowning. 

It was this exploit which caused one of the eye- 
witnesses, or nearly so, of the conflict, to say : 

" Dewey was always a hero. We of the old Con- 
federacy knew it long ago.'' And he had but to 
recite the above deed to find he was agreed with. 

The boats, with their loads, started for the fleet, 
which had anchored down the river by this time. 
The captain had not joined them until assured that 
fire, applied to the doomed hull at three or four 
places, would probably make a complete ruin. 
They had been fired upon on the way up by rifles 
and muskets from the banks, so that they had no 
pleasant prospect. 

Still in doubt whether this mournful duty was 
accurately accomplished, the chief officer asked the 
question of his lieutenant whether " She will burn V' 
and the other had returned within to make certain. 
The fire did not go out ; on the contrary, when, 
lightened by the removal of her guns and top-hamper, 
she slid out of the bank, the poor sloop drifted down- 
stream, midway in the morning, and finally blew up 
in another hour or two. 

The survivors of the catastrophe had been taken 
aboard the Richmond. 

The official report praises the coolness of Lieu- 
tenant Dewey.- 

He was transferred to the Colorado, and several 
months passed in patrolling the river as far as won 
to the Old Flag. This fatigue duty lasted up to the 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 39 

reduction of Vicksburg and Port Hudson by the 
united energies of the fleet and the army, the out- 
come of repeated conferences between General Grant 
and the naval chiefs. 

A first attack on Fort Fisher had come to grief, 
it being alleged tliat the land forces had failed to 
cooperate advantageously with the naval one ; be 
this true or erroneous, things went differently in a 
second attempt, and a last, the third. 

Admiral Porter commanded the water forces on 
this effort, Farragut having gone home to recruit 
and refit the Hartford, which required extensive re- 
pairs after the peppering received in her ascent of 
the Mississippi. 

The large number of land troops having been put 
on shore and in position, on the 15th of January, 
the fleet attacked in three lines. As the conflict 
was drawing to a close. Commodore Thatcher, of the 
Colorado, was signaled to stand in and silence a 
part of the defenses, which was a veritable hornets' 
nest. The vessel mentioned had been hit more than 
once from this quarter, and Dewey, anticipating the 
order, from its necessity, had fore-arranged the 
movements to sail in under the very guns. 

He had said to his superior, ^^We shall be safer 
in there, and those works will be taken, then, in 
fifteen minutes." 

The signal to go in came, therefore, to straining 
hounds, and the young officer's conjecture proved 
correct. 

When Admiral Porter was congratulating Thatcher 
on the promptness with which this critical order had 
been carried out — for it let the land contingency 
enter the lines and begin the victory — the worthy 
commodore said, with the generosity of a mariner : 

'' You must thank Lieutenant Dewey, sir, for he 
had suggested your own stroke." 



40 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

He went farther and recommended Dewey for pro- 
motion outgoing to Mobile Bay, where, as acting rear- 
admiral, he relieved Farragut, after the brilliant 
achievement of the Battle of Mobile. 

There was little now of naval note : Sherman 
marched triumphantly from Atlanta to Savannah ; 
Grant advanced and took Richmond : with the cap- 
ture of Jefferson Davis, head of the collapsed Con- 
federacy, the Internecine Strife ended in 1865. 

In March of this year, Dewey was promoted to be 
lieutenant-commander, and went aboard the sloop- 
of-war Kearsage, famous for sinking the notorious 
Confederate cruiser Alabama off Cherbourg, in the 
previous year. She was lost on a reef in the Carrib- 
bean seas, and it is a new vessel which carries her 
inextinguishable name. 

After doing duty subsequently on the flag-ship 
Colorado, Dewey came home, placed for repose, well- 
merited, at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, N. H, 



CHAPTER IV. 

COURTSHIP AlW MARRIAGE.— THE CAPTAINCY.— 
KINDLY ACT TO A BOY.— A STROKE OF NAUTICAL 
^IT. — COMMODORE AT SIXTY. — THE FAREWELL.— 
A FORECAST. 

• The belle of Portsmouth was Miss Susie Goodwin. 
She was daughter of a native of the place who had 
risen to the first post in the gift of the people of the 
State. Her father was, in fact, one of the " War 
Governors," and characteristically bore the cogno- 
men of '' Fighting Goodwin." 

The pretty damsel was the object of several suitors, 
but the contest centered upon our hero and an elder 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 4I 

officer, then Commander S. C. Khind, distinguished 
in the kite war by his sailing the fire-ship Louisicma 
up to the very walls of Fort Fisher — a deed paralleled 
only by the young officer's who steered the bomb- 
proof battery under Algiers fortalice, or, to come to 
later feats, Cushing's attack on the AWemm^le and 
Hobson's sinking of the hulk in Santiago Bay. 

Nevertheless, youth carried the day, and Dewey 
and Miss Goodwin were married in October, 1867. 

He was sent to preside over a department at his 
own Alma Mater, at Annapolis. 

Longing for the sea coming again, he was put in 
command of the Narragansett in 1869, with the 
right, after a certain date, to be entitled com- 
mander. 

In 1872, his dearest wish was gratified in his be- 
coming a father. His son was named George after 
himself and Goodwin after his wife's father. This 
dear wish was accompanied by the greatest grief of 
his life — as if we were always to be tendered, in a 
double cup, bitters and honey ! 

Mrs. Dewey died that same year. 

The bereaved husband remained on land for a 
period, being a lighthouse inspector in 1876. Later, 
he became secretary of the Lighthouse Board. 

In truth, he was one of those men armed at all 
points whom the Government appreciated so far as 
to keep them constantly in harness. At all events, 
the blade was not allowed to rust, though it might 
chafe in its scabbard, while the hand which should 
have wielded it was plying the goosequill. 

While in the Naval Bureau, Dewey had frequent 
opportunities to display that courtesy for which he 
was noted, perhaps because it is at some diver- 
gence from the bearish manners of too many bureau- 
tocrats. 

A man tells the story whose father was in position 



42 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

at Washington. One day, inquisitive as youth are, 
he inquired of his father, whom lie deemed, as boys 
will suppose of their progenitors, a fount of intelli- 
gence, why some light boats were called *'cat"- 
boats. 

Was there any sense to it or might they not as 
well be styled 'Mog "-boats ? The person pestered 
did not try to explain. He pointed to a gentleman 
whom the two had often crossed in their paths and 
said : 

^' If you will put your puzzle to that gentleman, 
he will give you all possible information, as he is 
head of the Naval Construction Bureau, I believe." 

The boy in perfect faith betook himself to the 
stranger, who received him kindly, though roused 
from a brown study, but hesitated iis if, in his turn, 
he, too, was ^^ graveled." But recovering, if the 
problem took him aback, to use a nautical phrase, 
he asked the questioner's name and address, and 
resumed his stroll. 

A few days afterward, when the boy thought no 
more about the matter, insignificant after all to him, 
he received a portentous missive, under the Naval 
Bureau frank and seal, directed to him as if he were 
a '^grown-up." 

Opening it in some trepidation, he found it an 
exhaustive reply to his query. It appears that, in 
all maritime countries, from time out of mind, a 
certain class of light craft have been named ^^cat "- 
boats, in allusion to their swiftness, alertness and 
speed, which observers chose to liken to the traits of 
the feline race. In the same way, fleet boats are 
called flies or mosquitoes. 

In 1882, returning to his vocation, Dewey com- 
manded the Juniata in the Asiatic Squadron, a fore- 
taste of the atmosphere which he was for a time to 
inhale, more or less intermingled with burnt powder. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 43 

In 1884, he was appointed full captain, a rank 
which is equivalent to a colonel's in the army. As 
such, he commanded the Dolphin, one of the well- 
remembered "^ White Squadron." Our vessels were 
not alone in adoj)ting this hue, gay to us but con- 
sidered mourning by those contrary folk the Chinese 
— for the British troojD-ships intended for Asiatic 
voyages are also painted to resemble snow-birds. 

In his new position, as heretofore, Dewey was the 
idol of his crew as well as beloved of his compeers. 
Even when his wit was justified, it had an amusing 
not caustic sharpness. 

In 1885, when commanding the Pensacola in the 
Mediterranean, she being the flag-ship, a shift of 
wind, accompanied by a rapid fall of the barometer, 
gave warning of changing weather. Presently a 
white squall came up, and there was busy work for 
all hands, the executive officer in the waist, the offi- 
cer of the deck on the quarterdeck, and the midship- 
man in the forecastle bellowing and repeating orders, 
while the sailors jumped through the tops like mon- 
keys. Just then something fouled the clews of the 
maintopsail, at the very moment the squall struck, 
and bungling for a moment or two nearly cost the 
vessel a spar. Dewey, from the bridge, was looking 
on, and everybody was in tremulous anticipation of 
a severe rebuke. But he only turned to the officer 
of the deck and said mildly : 

'^ Will you kindly tell me what was the matter just 
now with the agjicuUural 2^opulatio7i on the main- 
topsail yard ? " 

If there be one epithet more than another at which 
the jacky feels his nerves quiver, it is to that liken- 
ing him to a farmer. At the same time, odd though 
it may appear, yet the figures prove it the most 
valuable element in our whaling fleets, to say noth- 
ing of our navy, in time of war^ has been the New 



44 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Englanders who came from away-back in the woods 
and up the mountains. 

This remark percolated through the midshipmen 
to the crew, and, being duly translated, it produced 
an effect from which the men did not recover for 
days. 

Again on shore duty, our subject was chief of the 
Bureau of Equipment and Eecruiting, with the rank 
of commodore, being commissioned in 1896. 

Perhaps not one who ought to be in the current 
even had a clear idea of what trouble was impend- 
ing and where it would lift its horrific head, but 
there was more than human in the hand which in- 
dicated him to be head of the Asiatic Squadron in 
January, 1898. He had applied for sea-going duty 
in the previous year. 

It cannot be defined who in particular had the 
utmost to do with this important appointment. Mr. 
(Governor) Theodore Roosevelt, at the time Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy, his chief himself, Mr. Long, 
and Capt. Orowninshield, as head of the Navigation 
Bureau, all three insist that they foresaw the right 
man for the right place. 

If the whole truth were known, however unas- 
suming may be a man of worth, something like the 
divine afflatus surrounds him and denounces him to 
the chosen few ; Barras thought he was selecting a 
mere warming-pan in office by appointing young 
Bonaparte chief of an army ; Lincoln was chosen as 
a Presidential candidate because others, estimated 
immeasurably his superiors, were unavailable for the 
office ; Grant the Taciturn was no such popular 
favorite as McClellan ; and many a conqueror of an 
empire was supplied with ships in order to be rid 
of their importunities and not because their projects 
were credited. 

During his years of peace on shore and on the 




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OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 45 

quiet of the ocean, Dewey had ^'gained many friends 
and admirers by his evident ability, his modest firm- 
ness of character, his kindly courtesy, and his wide 
range of interest." 

The writer, without knowing it, touched the main 
and distinguishing point when he emphasized 
Dewey ^s wide-range : as Dr. Johnson sapiently says : 
^•'Experience is perpetually contradicting theories." 
An artillerist — and remember. Napoleon the Great 
was a perfect artillerist as Dewey was preeminent in 
naval gunnery — moves uj^on stepping-stones, facts 
and truths, which never swerve under the foot and 
must lead to the pedestal of this great monument. 
The variety of Dewey's occupations, confusing to a 
meager intellect, denoted his reach and aim : ' ^ xl 
successful man, to live as he should, must undertake 
more than he can perform." 

It was logical to expect that it would be a choice 
band, not merely of his brother officers, but military 
men, and one or two notable in other circles where 
the country is served, which encircled him on a 
night when he was to be toasted on his proud position 
and bidden God-speed ! 

There was no formality, but just friendliness and 
well-wishing, around the true gentleman, who, in 
twenty years, none had ever heard to grumble at be- 
ing unrecognized, to swear or to brag. 

An impromptu poetical address which has been 
often quoted was read by Colonel Archibald Hopkins. 

" Fill all your glasses full to-night ; 
The wind is off the shore ; 
And be it feast or be it fight, 
We pledge the Commodore. 

** Through days of storm, through days of calm, 
On broad Pacific seas ; 
At anchor off the isles of palm, 
Or with the Japanese. 



46 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

"Ashore, afloat, on deck, below, 
Or where our bulldogs roar. 
To back a friend or breast a foe 
"We pledge the Commodore. 

" We know our honor'll be sustained 
Where'er his pennant flies ; 
Our rights respected and maintained, 
Whatever power defies." 

More gravely prophetic and sublime in its conti- 
dence were tlie words of an old naval comrade, uttered 
previous to the illustrious events which eventuated 
under the Commodore^s flag : 

*' Dewey will take good care of his fleet and will 
make the most effective use of it. He is sagacious 
and far-sighted, as well as fearless and brave. The 
Spaniards are not likely to catch him napping. 
There is no ofldcer of the United States Navy who 
could lead a fleet into battle with greater certainty 
of victory than Commodore Dewey. He enjoys one 
great advantage as a commander in having the im- 
plicit confidence of his subordinates. Every man 
who knows Dewey would follow confidently wherever 
he might lead." 



CHAPTER V. 

OUR WAR WITH SPAIJ^. — CUBAN FILIBUSTERS. — OUR 
CON^SUL IN PERIL. — THE '' MAINE " OUTRAGE. — 
THE CUBAN CAMPAIGN. — " DELENDA EST — 
CERVERA ! " 

Clearly to understand the situation, it is impera- 
tive to review our dealings with Spain. That crowned 
Croesus of nations had become a beggar among the 
realms of Europe. One by one — sometimes, in a 
flock, she had lost those gaudy nestlings, her col- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 47 

onies, Pern, Mexico, The Golden Americas, on which, 
like the cormorant, not the pelican, she had fed. 

Some had become republics, more or less in onr 
image ; others, like Florida, had been sold lest an 
enemy should seize them. In. the middle of the nine- 
teenth centur}^, theWest Indies were about all she had 
left, and it was positive that *•' the brightest gem in 
the Spanish Crown,''' that is, Cuba, would not long 
be her subject, or would be a land of desolation. 

Travelers came away from that sea of sunshine 
and flowers more saddened than after gazing into an 
extinct volcano : official robbery was making a desert 
there. 

Time and again, natives who had never despaired 
of Cuban future, though they were all but alone in 
such flights, tried to excite the ^' Ever-faithful Isle" 
against the oppressor. Sympathizers with the cause 
of this new Lone Star Eepublic commenced to be 
numerous in the United States ; the fugitives, after 
each suppressed revolt, dwelt in our ports and had 
their sons educated here, where the pines or the oaks, 
of Maine or the Carolinas, breathe out freedom. 

In 1851, there was a deep thrill on the seaboard 
at the execution of certain rebels, called *' filibusters," 
from a Spanish word signifying freebooter, derived 
from those gentry using swift craft, or ^' fly-boats." 

The attempts to land arms and men, some of the 
latter being Americans,, continued for twenty years, 
with the stereotyped result of the supplies reviving 
the spirits of the ^' men on the mountain," or being 
captured and the bearers of the torch of Liberty 
murdered by slow torture in squalid prisons or broken 
by the garotte. 

In 1873, occurred a more remarkable act. The 
American steamer Virginius was seized while landing 
reinforcements for the insurrection, and a hundred of 
the crew were put to death. This was under Presi- 



48 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

dent-and-General Grant's administration. Popular 
indignation rose almost to overflowing, and the least 
imprudence would have precipitated the war against 
Spain of our era. 

This breach w^as patched up, but the chasm prom- 
ised, when it reopened, to swallow up the Spanish 
scepter in the New World, sick of these repetitions 
of the regime of Alva and the Inquisition. 

"Everything comes to the man who waits for the 
river to bring him his wishes'' — when that river is 
All-Time and his wishes are based on human welfare. 

In spite of the restrictions which the Old Country 
imposed on Cuban trade, especially against the hated 
Yankee, trade had increased yearly witli the nearest 
neighbor. Americans, bewitched by the fertility of 
Cuba, had invested their money profusely if prema- 
turely in not only the plantations, but factories and 
warehouses. The property interests of our citizens 
had become considerable, although much of it was 
prudently masked under foreign names. 

As the man said, after wincing at a sermon which 
'' named no names " : "It is hard to preach without 
hitting me somewheres," so, wherever the Spanish 
soldier, trained since the fifteenth century to " live 
on the country " — enemy's or ally's alike — fired a field 
of cane or tobacco or a storehouse, American property 
was sure to be injured. Then again, to what the regu- 
lar spared, the insurgent applied the torch. The for- 
eigner in Cuba was a sheep shorn on both sides. The 
claims of despoiled American citizens owning de- 
stroyed or damaged properties and business in the ill- 
fated island amounted, as filed at our Foreign De- 
partment, to ten millions of dollars. This sum is 
twice what Spain charged for the ceding of Florida 
to us. 

But the United States might hesitate to press the 
Lazarus of Europe — it was bankrupt. The quota- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 49 

tion of its funds on the Exchanges was a farce. In 
such a depth, meekness would have become it, but 
the Don was impudent as in his proudest days, and 
nothing is more exasperating than a saucy debtor. 

Thereupon, it began to be whispered in Europe 
that the United States would let out no more tether, 
and might bring up the Bad Example with a round 
turn — might even use the rojDe for a lashing. 

On the Island of Cuba, for the first time, merchants 
secretly opened their purse to the insurgents, on the 
plea that the sooner matters came to a head the bet- 
ter, as the United States were fated to intervene, take 
up the wrested scepter and govern as one saw it could 
govern, after the magnificent sight of the pacification 
after the Civil War — the resumption of a brother- 
hood merely shaken, not annulled. 

Formally, the payment of the Indemnity to our 
wronged fellow-citizens was demanded. The press 
had united in pointing out that we should never take 
our fit place among nations until, like Great Britain, 
the least hurt done to the meanest citizen is righted 
by all the united forces of the country. Spain 
badgered and scurvily treated Americans while an 
Englishman sauntered on the i^laza without the 
Captain-General himself of Cuba daring to offer him 
a slight. 

No one ventures to tread on the Lion's tail — let it 
be so that none try to pluck feathers from the Eagle ! 

Spain shuffled, as usual, at a point-blank demand. 

She retaliated with words ; that she would have put 
down the turbulent long ago in her confines but for 
the more or less secret sustenance of the United 
States. That weapons, levies of adventurers and 
food came regularly out of our Atlantic ports — no 
wonder from the nation always at the back of free- 
lances, like Lopez, Walker and the Count of Boulbon. 

Not a word about payment of the debt ! 
4 



50 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

At the same time, as if to accentuate the con- 
tempt and derision with which this chaim was met, 
the cruelty and hardness with which the Cubans 
were overwhehned were redoubled. 

On the grounds that the field was Avanted entirely 
for the movements of the Army of Kepression, the 
working population were ordered to go within the 
towns, such of the goods and crops as could not be 
carried off being destroyed by the soldiery to pre- 
vent the rebels being sheltered and fed by them, as 
the case might be. The military being themselves 
on short rations, thanks to the incompetency or dis- 
honesty of the officials of their own blood, these un- 
fortunate wretches, homeless, unclad, helpless, died 
like sheep, and the outskirts of the towns where they 
had been driven at point of bayonet resembled the 
shambles of the cannibal King of Dahomey. 

All America was aroused ; if the sword could not 
yet be drawn, the cash-box should be opened as well 
as the storehouse for these innocent sufferers. 

Then was seen a miserable act. England may 
not have liked us when we sent corn to the victims 
of the Irish Famine ; but, at least, she did not raise 
her hand against the succor reaching the unfortu- 
nates. It was left to Spain to reject this relief — and 
add insult to the barbarity by asserting that it was 
intended underhandedly for the aid of the revolu- 
tionists ! 

Serious riots were set a-going in Havana, where 
the Flag of Washington was hooted at on our Con- 
sulate, without, however, daunting our representa- 
tive there — General Lee — who firmly upheld it in the 
face of the seething scum. 

But as there were women and children of our kin 
under his unaided hand, he called upon the home 
Government to send a sufficient force to cow this 
hostility. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 51 

At the opening of 1898, the battle-ship Maine 
was ordered to the Cuban capital. 

In the evening of February 15th, an explosion 
occurred by which this splendid naval construction 
was irreparably shattered, and 264 of her brave crew, 
with two officers, — the others having providentially 
been absent at a short distance, — were carried down 
into the pestiferous depths unless mercifully killed 
by the shock. 

The echo of that infernal machine went round the 
world, and there was not a civilized country where 
justice — if not vengeance — was not called for, out 
of high heaven, for this destruction of a vessel in a 
friendly harbor, without the least suggestion of a 
state of war. 

Even the scalping savages used to go through a 
form of declaration of hostility before pulling the 
bow or drawing the knife. 

On the 21st of March, after an interval of waiting 
in which hearts never ceased to beat, and voices cry 
for ' ' AVar ! " the U. S. Board of Inquiry, to which 
a Spanish joint-commission had been sternly refused 
participation, brought in a verdict, so to say, that 
the Maiis^e had been destroyed by a submarine mine. 
The people — our people, nay, the world, stood aghast 
at no blame being fixed or even pointed at any one. 
To this date, mystery surrounds the terrible fate of 
the gallant warship — what hand could have been so 
near the heart, the pride or the spirit of Spain, that 
her throne hides it ? 

But Time melts the wax mask, or rends the plaster 
off the tablet and reveals the true architect — " the 
Man in the Iron Mask " may never be disclosed, but 
count on it, we yet shall learn who pressed the elec- 
tric button and destroyed the Maine ! 

On the 8th and the 9th days of March, the two 
branches of Congress passed a bill for the money to 



52 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

defray the expense of National Defense. Peace had 
caught us unprepared for a war with a European 
Power, insignificant in herself, but she might find 
allies, on one or another pretext. The prosperity 
of the United States — standing solution, as she is, to 
the problem of how to govern wisely, freely and 
happily — makes us unproclaimed but inveterate 
enemies in tyrants. 

The ultimatum of this country was that Spain 
should withdraw her forces from Cuba within three 
days ; but, already, that kingdom had presented the 
first move in actual hostilities by informing our 
Minister at Madrid that diplomatic relations no 
longer existed between the two countries. 

The AVar was fixed by Congress as having been 
initiated April 21st, 1898. 

While our agents were purchasing vessels, and 
Spain more or less unfruitfully trying to reinforce 
her navy by promises of a broken treasury, the ships 
we had in commission and merchantmen, hurriedly 
fitted out for cruising, made a number of prizes ; 
on the other hand, Havana was not effectually 
blockaded, save on paper. 

Three of our battle-ships bombarded the Port of 
Matanzas in April, which was the first marked act 
of warfare. 

At the end of that month, a Spanish fleet left 
Cape Verde, being their first act of hostility towards 
us. 

Arms were landed for the Cubans and their co- 
operation was sought as soon as our forces touched 
Cuban soil. Ports there were bombarded, but no 
engagement of importance ensued until the close of 
May, when it was found that the Spanish Admiral, 
Cervera, had entered the harbor of Santiago, one 
with a narrow entrance where he was ''bottled up." 
The American commander of the fleet which imme- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 53 

diately blockaded this gorge, Commodore Schley, 
drily remarked : ^' They will be a long while getting 
home/^ Indeed, on trying to run out, passing a hulk 
which had been daringly placed in the channel by 
Lieutenant Hobson, the Spanish ships were entirely 
destroyed, by fire, explosions or by running aground. 
The American loss was unnoticeable. The land 
forces had forced their way up to Santiago's gates 
and, surrounding it, its surrender was demanded. 

The annihilation of their fleet, under their very 
eyes, should have convinced even the obstinate 
Spaniards of the absurdity of further struggling,_but 
it was not without a siege and shelling that Santiago 
surrendered on the 17th of July. 

Porto Rico fell into our hands with ease, as the 
inhabitants were eager to pass under a more enlight- 
ened rule. The Cuban campaign was over, all but 
the signing of the peace. 

Let us hasten to return to our subject, who was 
no less active in his quarter of the globe. 



CHAPTER VL 

THE SCEISTE OF OUR FAR-EASTEEN PROBLEM. — THE 
PHILIPPINES. — PEOPLE. — CLIMATE. — PRODUCTS. — 
MAN-O'-WAR LIFE. — OX THE EVE OF ACTION". 

Our territory of the Philippines is the base of our 
own far-eastern question. 

The Philippine Islands were discovered in 1521 by 
Magellan, a Portuguese navigator. They are in the 
North Pacific Ocean ; they may be roughly bounded 
thus : To the north, China and Japan ; to the 
west, Burmah, Siam and Malaya ; to the south. 



54 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Borneo and New Guinea. They number upwards of 
a thousand, but several hundreds are very small ; 
they seem fragments of a vast land, shattered by 
earthquakes or volcanic disturbances ; they are still 
subject to cosmic disruptions, while typhoons, tidal 
waves and torrents of rain temper the too paradisaical 
region. The hot and moist air, while unfavorable to 
Europeans and Northern Americans, enable more 
languid and contented races to thrive. The winter 
is the Eainy Season of the Tropics when outdoor life 
is suspended. 

Magellan made his acquaintance with the Philip- 
pine Group at the Marianne Islands, which he named 
after the thievish natives the Laclrones, that is, 
Kobbers. There are fifteen of these, one of which, 
Guam, or Guahan, had become a U. S. N. coaling 
station, since we took possession. 

The principal islands are Luzon and Mindanao ; 
the chief city of all being Manila on the former. 

The article of produce by which Europe and 
America know the place is hemp, Manila rope being 
used extensively in whaling fleets and the present 
navies, wire rope not having ousted it from its pride 
of place as yet. 

But the soil is fertile for grain, mainly rice, the 
main item on the PhiliiDpine bill of daily fare, bread 
fruit, plantains, mangoes, etc.; some culture is 
given to cotton, tobacco, sugar-cane and sisal ; it is 
stated assuringly that the United States could be 
supplied with all the sugar needed from our new ac- 
quisition alone. 

Spain took hold of the Archipelago under the 
reign of King Philip II., and set his name upon all 
which he, therefore, nominally governed. Hence 
the names of Filipinos, Philippines, etc. But apart 
from the two islands already cited, and the larger 
ones, Panay, Palawan, Negros, Leyte, Samar, etc., 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 55 

the Spanish in three centuries learned little about 
the interior. 

The aborigines, Kegritos, are physically small 
and mentally low, so incapable of improvement that 
scientific reasoners do not regret their dying out. 
The savages, still infesting the mountain and forest 
recesses, have never submitted to the Sj^anish 
arsenal of sword, thumbscrew, rack, damp cells, and 
strappado ; they remain unenlightened ; a favorite 
delicacy with them are the flying foxes (Pterojms 
Riihricollis), or fox-bats, so named from their reddish 
color (hence another title, Koussette, or Eusset). 

These curiosities take the first place in the list of 
the odd creatures in the wilds from their being the 
largest of bats. 

Their wings extend five feet across ; these they 
fold about them as they hang in the daytime by 
hooky hind feet from the dead trees, their roosting- 
places after a debauch on fruit as well as drinking their 
fill of naturally fermented cocoa-nut juice (toddy). 
Sleepy and intoxicated, they hang in clusters like an 
enormous fruit, when the savages gather them in 
baskets and carry them off for feasts ; they are 
roasted and, it is said, taste like hare. 

The better civilized live on rice, salted fish and 
yams, while the Mohammedan Malays, in the ports, 
do not disdain our canned comestibles. A large 
number of Chinese are among the rest of the popu- 
lation of eight or ten millions who are our new 
brothers in the Orient. 

Taken at their best, that is, unaffected by the mis- 
training under the departed government which fos- 
tered treachery and cunning by its cruelty and 
rapine, the Filipinos are asserted to be honest, hos- 
pitable and affable. 

What the expelled rulers were, may be gathered 
from their everyday sayings, such as : *^* The official 



56 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

who cannot lie mav as well be dead." '' Gold rules 
all and his Viceroy is Coin." " Officers get into all 
kinds of scrapes, but officials get them out." 

Spite of such morals, the natural abundance of 
produce and the trading facilities of Luzon lifted it 
into importance. Even the continual drain of the 
cream towards Spain has not prevented Manila, its 
capital, being noteworthy. It was walled for two 
miles, with a thickness of well-made masonry which 
defied ancient artillery, while on one side a river, on 
another its fine Bay, with artificial moats for the 
rest, set the natives, if they revolted, at defiance. 

In 1762, the English took it without much ado. 
The cannon on the ramparts were then old, and 
those of quite modern manufacture, with which our 
advance was to be checked, if possible, were few in 
number and poorly served. 

In 1875, it was projected to build several railroads 
running out of Manila, but the home Government 
continued to turn all funds to the treasury at 
Madrid and only one was constructed : 150 miles 
from the capital to Dagupan. We shall do better 
than that in the next twenty years ! 

The place next mentioned to Manila is Iloilo. 
This is an island 300 miles off. The Spanish 
retired hither when driven by us out of Manila, and 
were promptly besieged by the native revolutionists, 
styling themselves the Visayan Republic, not to be 
confounded with the insurgents under Aguinaldo. 

At the same time, almost exactly, as the colonists 
in Cuba were restless under the rules dictated at 
Madrid, those in Spain's Eastern possessions were 
chafing. 

Like sea-eagles on a peak watching a dispute among 
fish-hawks, our Asiatic fleet waited at Hong Kong, 
and would not be allowed to wait for long. 

It is believed with reason that no politician or 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 5^ 

statesman among ns dreamt of other work in the 
Pacific but fettering the Spanish fleet at that point, 
so that it might not interfere with onr progress in 
liberating the Ishand of Cuba. 

Not a glimmer of territorial aggrandizement ap- 
pears in all the press or public utterances. 

At Hong Kong the preparations were mado for 
Dewey's swoop. 

Those waters were animated with cruisers of vari- 
ous powers. 

Japan and China were backed secretly in their tilt 
by Europeans, or at least the Colossus who has one 
foot in Asia. 

Germany had colonial designs ; France would not 
be content with Tonquin ; England might covet a 
slice of the stepping-stones between India and Aus- 
tralia. 

The coimtries not directly engaged would stand 
neutral, implying that our war-vessels could not 
obtain supplies in any port between there and Cali- 
fornia. 

To destroy the Spanish fleet under Montejo, and 
occupy for repairs and victualing the port it was 
flung out of, was a double ended project as impera- 
tive as hazardous. 

Be sure that our naval commander weighed well 
the chances. 

To succeed in such a mighty dash was to be hailed 
as Bold ; when such feats fail, the bearer of the brunt 
is styled Rash. 

He was truly informed that never had the insur- 
gent Filipinos shaken the throne of their tyrants so 
deeply as of late. Greedy as the Spanish were about 
money and harassed to obtain it, the rebel leader had 
been _'' bought off" the field by a stupendous sum, 
but^ it was asserted, upon full knowledge of the 
natives, that the bargain would not hold. On the 



58 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

arrival of the hostile fleet, the Spanish on deck and 
on the battlement of Manila would be betwixt two 
fires. 

Ordered out of the Chinese port by the laws of 
neutrality, the Asiatic Squadron touched at Mirs Bay 
and started on that voyage which was to be memor- 
able to Americans as Columbus's. 

AVar-ships are expensive ; it is necessary to employ 
them without loss of time. 

A first-class battle-ship is a monstrous engine : the 
boiler surface to generate steam to impel one equals 
eight acres and tliey hold thirty tons of water. They 
have guns on them which hurl sliot weighing half a 
ton ; and thougli we have not on board the artillery 
or longest possible range, such as will throw fifteen 
miles, they are ample for their purpose of confusing 
an enemy who may be smashed without seeing even 
with a spy-glass wlience issued the projectile. 

Our vessels are up to date ; all scientific appliances 
are installed ; the electric plant would suffice to light 
up a town of five thousand inhabitants if transferred 
from a war-ship to the shore. 

Under forced draft, the consumption of coal is 
like shunting it from the mine in bulk down a chute 
into the sea. 

The Spanish ships were not up to the mark for 
want of mone}^, or rather, as was the case with France 
in the Franco-Prussian War, the funds were mis- 
appropriated ; the gold went to belace the officers 
instead of providing the latest guns and good am- 
munition. 

The Spanish sailor is brave as the Iberian peasant 
has always been ; but he is no mechanician as the 
Yankee is. If anything goes wrong with intricate 
engines he is all at sea. In our Civil War, when our 
columns reached a railroad junction, for example, 
where the fugitive foe had left a locomotive disabled 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 59 

bevond repair, they thought, the general simply 
called a halt, and gave an order to his colonels. 

The latter appealed to the regiments : '' Is there 
not a man or men here knowing railroad engine 
building ?" and usually several stepped to the front. 
Now, on board the Spanish vessels, the gunners 
could not loosen a jammed breech, or clear a muzzle 
of a prematurely dischaTged cartridge. 

They had one or two '' show" vessels, but even on 
them the aspect lacked the extreme neatness of an 
American man-of-war. Scarcely do the British, even 
under a martinet, present the spick-and-span ap- 
pearance of our fine defenders. 

The spare hours are not passed in spinning yarns, 
weaving fancy knots or making model ships, but in 
fencing, cutlass drill, sword versus bayonet or lance, 
and so on. As for the guns, it is known and was 
affirmed by intelligent observers that the American 
gunners were the most practised of any the seas over. 
If we never had much experience in evolutions of 
a fleet— that is, twelve or more battle-ships in aline— 
the Spanish were no better. The last naval affair of 
note in which they won was Lepanto, as far back as 
1571. In their actions with the French and English 
they were the second-best ; and as for the defense of 
their merchantmen against pirates— the capture of a 
Spanish silver-ship was looked on as a cat regards 
the taking of a corpulent mouse. 

The news which Consul Williams brought at the 
last moment from Manila had severed the only tie 
binding the Dewey Squadron to Chinese waters. 

In the final week of April, 1898, the American 
force quitted the roads, composed of the flag-ship, 
OJi/mpia, Captain Gridley ; the Baltimore, com- 
manded by Captain Dyer ; the Raleigh, commanded 
by Captain Coghlan ; the Boston, commanded by 
Captain Wildes ; the Concord, commanded by Com- 



6o THE LIFE AND CAREER 

mander Walker, and the Petrel, commanded by Com- 
mander AVood. 

The Monocaoy lost her share of glory as she was 
unfit for even a short voyage and had to stay at 
Shanghae. 

Any passing vessel which saw this warlike pro- 
cession must have guessed that their errand was not 
of peace ; for they were painted in that olive-gray 
tint chosen to be the fighting-color of America on the 
waters. 

They rode, too, with a lightness which showed that 
they had been docked and cleaned of the enormous 
accumulation of shells and animalculas common to 
tropical waters. They were provisioned for three 
months out, and if the ammunition was not^ in su- 
perfiuity, enough is as good as a feast when it came 
to ''giving the Dons a bellyful!'' The cannon 
were always in order, but they were polished up and 
eased in their working as though to receive a state 
visit of the Chief of our Commonwealth. 

A supply-vessel and a collier were tenders to this 
fleet. 

Even the Baltimore, which had been bringing 
extra ammunition, had been docked, cleaned and 
dressed before she joined her companions. 

They were only two days out of sight of land ; still, 
the evolutions of actual warfare were performed, but 
with more than the usual relish with the prospect of 
an engagement so near. 

Like the Admiral and their other officers, without 
waiting for the ^' Maine Commission Report," still less 
for the declaration of war, all were sure that the 
dastardly outrage was undeniable and not to be 
condoned. In their minds something like the re- 
frain, by mental, wireless telegraphy, of a song ring- 
ing along the Cuban shores, might be said to circu- 
lat« from the stoke-hole to the top : 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 6l 

" Don't forget the watchword, boys, whenever we strike 

Spain ; 
Remember it, gun captains, when the order comes to 

train ; 
Remember, boys, remember, the destruction of the 

Maine, 
And avenge it while fighting for freedom." 

Seen from aloft, this rehearsal of the movements 
in real fighting would have convinced the observer 
that the American seaman has kept pace with the 
innovations of science into Jack's domain, and that 
he was better than a machine— an intelligent one. 

The routine begins with the bugle-call for " To 
■ quarters ! " 

Every man on board a man-of-war has his station 
in which he stands to do his duty, come what may 
and until ordered away ; or to issue hence as a wild- 
cat from its lair. 

The men who are to repel boarders leave their re- 
spective guns' screws, and rush upon the upper deck, 
carrying one or more hammocks to be stowed in the 
nettings when the ship has a high freeboard, or to be 
packed around the deck machine and other guns, to 
protect them. 

The guns are cleared of covers and sea-lashings, all 
the operating parts, to see that they play smoothly, 
and the implements required for loading and extract- 
ing placed in position. 

Below, the powder magazines are opened and the 
shells and grenades got out ; the electric battle- 
lanterns are turned on, that excellent precaution 
against fire which our forefathers did not know of ; 
water is pumped into the divisions so that each com- 
partment is fire-proof ; and the hoist begins to raise 
the deadly projectiles of novel shapes to the gun- 
decks. 

If it is supposed the enemy has got aboard, the sea- 



62 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

men are massed before the marines, who cover them 
with their rifles in two or more rows ; the machine- 
guns are run forward as to meet the imaginary foe, 
and the charge is made on the same. 

Elsewhere the signals of several sorts are made 
ready for use so as to keep up correspondence each 
with the sister-ships of the fleet ; the torpedoes are 
fitted in their ejectors ; the surgeons prepare their 
merciful arsenal. 

All this ceaseless movement goes on without noise, 
save for the whirr, the buzz of the dynamos, the 
rattle of chains conveying power, the clicking of 
machinery. In these sham actions there is no cheer- 
ing, and one misses the sound of detonations. 

When each division officer knows that his scope of 
duties is fulfllled he makes his report : thus the com- 
mander is apprised in an incredibly short time that 
the vessel is ready as one comprehensive thing. 

It was with this assurance of readiness that Dewey 
heard the cry of '^ Land ! " when three days out. It 
was Subig Bay headland. 

If the enemy were there, in the forefront of Ma- 
nila, as might be, since the Spanish must have known 
that the fleet had sailed and its destination, the con- 
test would soon commence. 

As an old comrade of the Admiral said, a year or 
more previously : '^ Dewey will take good care of 
his fleet and will make the most effective use of it. 
He is sagacious and far-sighted as well as fearless and 
brave. The Spaniards are not likely to catch him 
napping. There is no officer in the United States 
navy who could lead a fleet into battle with greater 
certainty of victory than Commodore Dewey." 

It was Saturday morning, April 30th, and it was 
Cape Bolinao ahead, the N. E. point of Luzon 
Island. Scouts went ahead to spy into Subig Bay. 
backed by the Baltimore in case the hostile squadron 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 63 

was there. It is thirty miles this side of Manila 

Bay. 

But there were neither ships nor fortified works 

there. 

Consal Williams was right ; the enemy awaited the 
onset in Manila Bay, where the land works would 
strengthen their defense. 

On the renewed course for that battle-ground the 
final preparations were made. 

The officers wrote the mast letters which might 
never pass Davy Jones' locker ; the sailors confided 
keepsakes for the sweetheart at home to a messmate. 
Then the order went forth for all " hamper," that 
is, lumber as we say on land, to be thrown overboard. 
Everything which might catch fire or cause more 
mischief by its splinters and fragments than the in- 
coming shot which smashed it is thus disposed of 
on the eve of action. 

In the desire to make a clean sweep, the men even 
hurled over their mess-room tables, though these 
might have been towed alongside ; one lad, in his 
excitement, flung over his jacket, but, the next mo- 
ment, 'repenting, he leaped over to recover it. This 
caused astir which drew the commander's attention 
on him. He wished to know about this infraction 
of duty, for there is no time to waste over an indi- 
vidual in an encounter. The boy confessed that the 
throwing away of the coat was f orgetf ulness, but that 
the jumping after it was intended ; the fact was, in 
. a pocket, was his mother's likeness and he had 
promised never to part with it. 

Courage and compassion go together in the heart 
of a true hero : Dewey pardoned the lad, as you may 
be certain. 

In this general delivery, his own uniform cap had 
gone over to amuse the sharks, and the artist who 
pictured him at the Battle of Manila in a cocked hat 



64 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

deserves to be knocked into one ; he presided over 
the struggle wearing a traveling-cap picked np and 
donned for the nonce. This free-and-easy trait suits 
our temperament and is in vivid contrast to the exag- 
gerated dandyism of two centuries since, when naval 
commanders plumed themselves on dressing for a con- 
flict with wigs well dressed and all their decorations 
npon the breast of their best uniform coats. 

The ships were as perfect as if fresh from the 
hands of the constructor. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE BATTLE OF MAI^ILA BAY. 

When" the captains were summoned for the council, 
usual before a general engagement, faces began to 
set sternly ; there could be not the least doubt pre- 
served now that America was to cross blades with 
Spain in these remote seas. 

But the set expression was soon a serene smile : 
every man who had followed Dewey would continue 
while he led, even into the dread abode where no 
hope dwells. 

An old grizzled gunner was heard to say : *^With 
him into the jaws of Hades !'' 

It has been stated that this council of war was to 
give the superior the benefit of the subordinates' 
opinions and judgment, but this is an error. He in- 
tended to dye them sheerly his final instructions— 
the fighting orders. But more than one knew his 
metal. Few had given him even slight study with- 
out coming to Admiral Bunce's decision : 

'' Dewey is a gallant officer and a good sea fighter. 
He will render a good account of himself. If there 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 65 

is any fighting to be done he will be in it, and he 
will ight to the last." 

There were no two courses here. The hostile 
fleet was before them, backed by other guns in for- 
tifications. They had not come so far to turn tail 
and retire — whither ? 

So, when the plan of attack was laid before the 
group, and the advisability of entering the harbor 
that same night, all was adopted instantly save by 
one objector. There must always be one doubting 
Thomas, or at least one over-prudent. To convince 
this one into unanimity, the presiding officer said : 

**The Spaniards know when we sailed from Mirs 
Bay, and they can calculate exactly when we may be 
expected to arrive off Corregidor. But, in all prob- 
ability, their forecast of what w^e shall do will be 
based upon the knowledge of what they would do 
under similar circumstances. I feel sure that tJieij 
would not think of going in at night, and therefore 
that they would not believe it possible that we should 
do so. Consequently, to go in at night is the best 
thing that we can do.^' 

The way of attack had been exposed, but not the 
exact order of the action. For his part, it is known 
that one of the captains had not a definite idea of his 
commander's lofty project. For he went slowly up 
into the harbor, expecting to be brought to a stand- 
still at any moment, for who but a madman, or a 
genius, — they resemble one another, — w^ould con- 
template with such calmness the entrance of a harbor 
probably lined wdth batteries and carpeted with 
mines and torpedoes ? This cautious captain doubled 
his lookouts and kept his eyes strained for guiding 
signals. 

Meanwhile, all being ready on every deck, half the 
men were allowed to take a nap alongside the loosened 
guns. Few of them really slept, perhaps— not with 

5 



(i6 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

apprehension, God forbid, on an American deck ! — 
but with eagerness to show that peace had not 
deteriorated our '' hearts of oak !" 

When the flag-ship thrust her prow into Manila 
Bay, the moon was far above the horizon and at her 
first quarter. There were clouds, but they were not 
large and were intermittent as regarded the light, 
which 2:)revented the night being favorable to the rush. 

The Island of Luzon has, in a rough delineation, 
the shape of a whale in the act of breaching or bend- 
ing its tail half over. 

Imagine this fish to have a triangular slice cut out 
of the bend to the west, the body lying north and 
south, head up. At one angle, inward, is the city 
of Manila ; a nick in the opposite side represents the 
entrance, with an island choking up the gap. Just 
beyond the harbor mouth, trending southward by 
east, the coast falls off to make one side of the 
Straits of Manila. 

This island is called Corregidor, and the Point, 
which guards the other side of the narrow channel, 
Mariveles. 

As the leading ship of the squadron steamed 
through this gut, the Commodore remarked to his 
flag-officer : 

'* We ought to hear from the battery on that island 
by now ! " 

But all was hushed, as all was dark. Except for 
the stern light which each vessel showed as a guide 
to the next, their positions could hardly be defined 
in the dusk. The second ship, the Baltimore^ could 
be discerned, but not so the Raleigh, next, which 
was but a phantom for the keenest sight. 

The chief sailed two miles farther, tending south- 
ward, being fairly abreast of Corregidor Island, when 
from there a signal was sent out to the mainland, 
through the mist. 



O^ ADMIRAL DEWEY. 6y 

The Boca Grande (Main Mouth) was passed 
through as slowly as the formation of the line could 
be maintained. At the end of the other passage, 
the Little Mouth, a steady light showed white, but 
it did not seem connected with our approach. 

It was now five or so in the morning. 

All of a sudden, a rocket went up from the midst 
of this island, as if on a message to the god of battles, 
Mars. 

The Olymjna had passed a mile beyond Corregidor 
and within five of Manila, when the first gun boomed 
from a lone rock, called the Monk {el Fraile), and 
a heavy shell screamed through the flag-ship's 
rigging. 

Another quickly followed, to which three ships 
made reply and seemed to shut up that oppositionist, 
instanter. 

Day broke. '^ By the dawn's early light " the 
Spanish saw '^ the broad stripes and bright stars !" 

''Yes," said a man by a gun, ''they will see stars 
before the day is done ! " 

There were veterans on both sides ; but, though 
"full many a glorious morning " they may have 
seen, never would the likeness of that one for splen- 
dor be approached. 

So thoroughly beforehand was the planner of the 
annihilation of the Spanish Eastern fleet, that, on 
leaving Mirs Bay, he had said to one who would 
treasure and report his words : 

"The fight will come off on Sunday next ! " 

Dewey turned to his aid on the bridge and ob- 
served : 

" It has taken a long time for them to wake up, 
but probably they will make it the hotter for us 
when they begin." 

A man such as he does not under-rate his foes. 

The order of battle was : the Olympia, the Balti- 



6S THE LIFE AND CAREER 

more^ the Raleigh, the Petrel, the Concord and the 
Boston. These could go at twelve knots the hour, 
and the flag-ship at fifteen ; but they were hindered 
by the supply ships, guarded only by the cutter 
McCuUoiigli, incapable of a better pace than eight. 
If the battle-ships had outsped them, they might 
have been cut off by Spanish gunboats. 

The opposing fleet, under Rear-Admiral Montejo, 
had been lavishly fltted at Cavite Arsenal, and dur- 
ing the coming fray moved about under a full head 
of steam before their station, at Cavite, a suburb of 
the town, seven miles seaward. 

It is hard for a landsman to conceive more than an 
inadequate idea of a warship in action ; the ponder- 
ous guns make a noise beyond that of a whole broad- 
side of an ancient wooden ship ; the steam and 
smoke envelop the whole structure and change the 
brass, so brilliant a while before, into a tint of verdi- 
gris. The men have to brace themselves against tlie 
shock of the discharges, holding the arms stiff and 
away from the body to let the lungs have full play, 
while the mouth is opened, to the same end. 

The detonation of the big guns is more bearable, 
as less sharp than of the smaller ones, and the con- 
cussion hurts less because it is so general. Those 
who have had the heart leap in response to a sudden 
blow on a big drum close to them may faintly im- 
agine what the boom of an eight-inch gun is like. 

Since the '^ last argument'' had fired, all were ex- 
pecting death to come aboard ; and death on a war- 
ship is not attended by only those horrors known on 
land. If in a land engagement thirty-two per cent, 
of the combatants are reckoned to be killed in the 
first few minutes, this is increased at sea. 

A badly wounded sailor rarely may escape, for 
shells are continually exploding on the smooth deck 
where he has been struck down. He cannot be 




:^t 






'^ 




OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 69 

helped below or tumble within, for the storm-hatches 
are fastened down to keep out explosives. If not in 
close action, the wounded might be deposited be- 
hind the turrets, all the shelter which rises off the 
level decks, but there it would be difficult for the 
surgeons to exercise their art. 

At the battle of Yalu, a single shot killed and 
hurt over a hundred. In the same, a surgeon and 
his patients were all killed by a shell bursting in their 
ward. The boats have all been shot away, of course, 
and on our ironclads there is nothing to make a raft 
of ; so, if the ship is rammed or from any other 
cause, sinks, all go down without a chance, as when 
the British ironclad Ccq)tnin ''turned turtle"' in 
the MediterraneaUc The enemy's boats would also 
be shattered ; so that, if there were time to do such a 
heroic act of compassion, none could be furnished to 
save the drowning. 

Still the Olympia steamed on, not seeming to no- 
tice she had been fired on ; but a signal had called 
the little cutter McCulloughio her offside, where she 
would be sheltered from the shells. 

Here came a little incident which may be that 
touch of matter-of-fact proving that the spirit can- 
not always overrule the flesh. At the Battle of 
Leipsic Napoleon over-ate and lost the day from in- 
disposition. Dewey, calling for coffee to counteract 
some cold tea drank in the hot night and muggy 
morning, was as qualmish as a green hand in his 
first nor'wester. 

But the excitement and the uproar of battle soon 
restored this pupil of Farragut to his usual placidity 
when a tempest raged. It was for him, and none 
other, to direct this storm — at least, so much of it 
as hurtled and thundered from under the American 
banner. 

Barely a hundred yards ahead of his ship, all of a 



70 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

sudden, two mines exploded and spouted up water 
like dying whales vomiting blood. 

The secret intelligence on this subject had not 
been too explicit. In such a doubt the most brazen 
front might have wrinkled, but not so here. 

^' Ha," he said, " they have some mines, after all, in 
fit condition ! They are in a hurry to settle matters! " 

This to his volunteer aid on the bridge ; then he 
added to Lieutenant Calkins, the navigator, who was 
steering all the more cautiously as the only chart 
obtainable was turning out faulty : 

^' Hold her in as closely as the water will let you ; 
but be careful not to touch bottom."' 

This important officer is even more exposed than 
the chief, as his station is with the compass in its 
box, on the mast over the bridge where the com- 
mander stands. 

As for the mines, none farther took up the de- 
fense. It was soon considered that the Spaniards 
had fired these more than anything to make it be 
supposed that they had others ready, protecting the 
fleet which, in its turn, protected the forts. 

The crew began to chuckle, partly to slack the ex- 
treme nervous tension at being fired on from below 
as well as in front, and tlie word made the rounds : 

" They are not so handy with their mines as in 
Havana Harbor, are they ? " 

The sole shots from our vessels so far were those 
wliich silenced the outermost shore batteries. 

Meanwhile the ordnance at Manila Mole was fir- 
ing as regularly as the guns could be worked. But 
the aiming was bad and the shots fell askew. The 
Spanish saw this from the outset, but attributed the 
failure to do damage, characteristically enough, to 
the American ships being armored and too far for 
such of their cannon as were antiquated and of short 
range. They kept up the cannonade, after the man- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY 7I 

ner of the Latin race to be animated by din, and to 
reassure their fellow-countrymen, non-combatants, 
who were fleeing out of town or posting themselves 
in the church towers to have a sanctuary as well as 
an observatory, probably safe. 

A time had been fixed for the firing, but as it 
was clear, as in the case of a poor fencer transfixing 
an adept by reason of his own ^^ flukes,^' a chance 
shot might, however blundering the gunner, inflict 
terrible injury, the Commodore put forward the 
hands of the clock. 

His captain, Gridley, not to be immolated in the 
bridge with his chief by one shot, was in the con- 
ning tower. To him he called, in a voice clear and 
ringing as the bugle which speedily sounded to be- 
gin " Firing." 

" You may fire, Gridley, when ready ! " 

^' When ready ! " This was quiet sarcasm, for the 
gunners had been ready from over-night ! Gridley 
had but to nod to Charles Mitchell, the ship's bu- 
gler, standing by his side, when he set his gleaming 
instrument to his lips and blew the shrill order over 
the iron hull upon the unruffled waters. 

A second later, one of the OhjmjMs eight-inch 
guns in the forward turret hurled its massy reply 
towards both fleet and forts, while the sliips went 
speeding in the same direction — Cavite, the mark, 
three miles off. 

Up to the fore-truck ran the signal to ^' Engage !" 
and the attack became general at last. 

The contending fleet was represented by the fol- 
lowing vessels, not up to the level of ours in modern 
appliances, but, though of wood or thinly armored, 
sufficiently well-armed to have made a more formida- 
ble fight. The Reina Cristina, Castilla, Don An- 
tonio de UUoa (these were sunk or scuttled), the 
Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Luzon, Isia de Cti^a, 



72 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

General Leso, Marquez del Deuro, El Correo, Ve- 
lasco, Isla cle Mindanao, armed transport (these were 
burnt) ; two tugs, Her cole and Bap i do with, several 
steam launches, captured. 

The Crist ina and the Cast ilia were the foremost 
of the enemy, and they must bear the worst of the 
charge. Indeed, as the Olymjna sheered to star- 
board, her port-battery of five-inch guns added their 
violent roars to the disturbance of the air. 

The Baltimore, in particular, vied with the chief 
vessel in emitting a sort of volcanic eruption upon 
the line of battle opposite. 

From Sangley Point, where the best artillery was 
at work, being the latest royal arsenal turnout of 
Hontoria guns, continued to come a tolerably cred- 
itable fire. More than once it hulled our attackers, 
and transpierced the Boston. 

Its commander was Captain Frank Wildes, whose 
replacing ofticer had arrived at Hong Kong before 
he sailed, but he preferred to stick to his ship, fore- 
knowing the famous action. Another member of 
the same complement. Gunner Evans, had no less 
patriotism ; he had also been detached, but cast his 
lot afresh with his messmates in order to lose no leaf 
from their wreath of victory. 

The exchange of warm compliments went on be- 
tween ships and forts until a quarter to eight. 

Seeing that their long-bowling had apparently in- 
flicted no sensible harm, the Don Juan of Austria 
was started by the Spanish Admiral to check the 
Olympia in its steady advance, like a majestic sea- 
god's. 

It would have been useless to attempt to board her, 
but it is said that such an intention was cherished. 
x\t all events, the Don was repelled by a broadside ; 
recoiling, but not to spring again. She had fire in 
her interior, which her crew were unable to extin- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 73 

guish, and she was beached to save their lives ; one 
ofiBcer had been killed on her board, and her flaring 
hull gave the spectators on the towers their money's 
worth, as one of the beholders said, ^' If they came 
out to see our own ships as torches ! " 

Fonr times the Americans coasted along the war- 
like but shifting front, baffled by their mobility ; 
then, relying no more upon the harbor chart, which 
was defective, the sailing-captain of the Olympia 
offered to take her in nearer the foe, trusting solely 
to the sounding line to learn the true depth of the 
water. 

This allowed. Lieutenant Calkins watched the 
leadsman as he kept the plummet going, and steered 
the powerful ship within two thousand yards of the 
hostile bulwarks, which range at last enabled the 
six-pounders to tell, as the five-inch ones had been 
favored a little earlier. 

In spite of the exactness of our gunners, at this 
abbreviated distance, some of the shells were seen to 
waste themselves in the waves or, flying too high, to 
whizz over the short, fighting-masts of the opponents. 
At this rate long would the red-and-yellow float upon 
the royal squadron. 

In some of this shooting there must have been 
more slap-dash, due to excitement, than calculation, 
and good as Yankees are at guessing, the outcome 
did not daunt the Spaniards, who responded hand- 
somely. 

Indeed, many of the touches had but to have been 
palpable hits for the losses to be less one-sided. Both 
from the wooden walls and the stone ones the shells 
which fell thick on the assailants were rarely percus- 
sion but time-fuses and well measured. It may be 
recorded that one burst within thirty yards of the 
Olympiads bridge and spat a fragment, as large as 
one's fist, to scoop out the deck below the Com- 



74 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

modore's feet. A second cut the signal-halliards 
from the hand of Lieutenant Brumby, and another 
severed the rigging over the stafi officers' heads ; a 
shell strack a gun in the ward-room. 

This calamity was caused by a couple of our own 
shells being exploded by a shot boarding, splitting 
up the maindeck and upsetting a six-inch gun. 

About this time, the volunteer aid of the Com- 
modore having to use his eyes like Argus, as he 
was correspondent of the N. Y. Herald as well, per- 
ceived two small fleet boats creeping out from be- 
hind Fort Sangley. Once out of cover they put on 
steam and cleft the water at a fine rate. His chief 
was spying the shore, the ships and the burning Don 
Juan, and being told what was seen, impatiently 
and scornfully rejoined : 

^^ Well, you look after them ! I can't be bothered 
with torpedo boats ! Let me know when they are 
sunk ! " 

He turned to watch the Reina Cr^istina, which pre- 
ceded her companions as though to avenge the Don 
Juan, sinking in flames like the ^^Don Juan" of 
operatic fame. The secondary batteries of the flag- 
ship were accordingly aimed at these pests, and one 
being sunk, tlie otlier disabled, the latter hurried 
whence she came. No more small fry meddled with 
tlie larger fishes' quarrel after this episode. 

The Cristina was still coming on, as though she 
were a ram and hoped to cut down the Oly^npia. 

The entire ship's battery was concentrated upon 
her while she was getting into short range, and those 
who have seen the target which the Olijmiyia^s gun- 
ners riddle into a sieve, may picture her appearance 
after this terrific hail. The ship was filled with 
dead and wounded, and in the bow a column of 
flame and vapor kept ascending as she bore away, as 
if her fate were to be, indeed, the same as her pre- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 75 

decessor, the Don. In fact, while seeking shelter of 
the point, hope was lost and she was run aground 
at tlie arsenal. 

The Castilla, also set afire by a shell, thanks to 
her being wood, gave the spectators the idea that the 
Yankees were using Greek fire or the like, though 
forbidden in civilized war. Civilized war, in their 
eyes, however, allowed the use of submarine mines, 
and in time of peace ! 

The principal vessels of Montejo being out of 
active fighting trim, it seemed the instant for the 
so-far victors to go in and finish. It is true that 
the water shoals so rapidly between where the Spanish 
maneuvered and their land defenses, that Dewey could 
not repeat the bold dash of Nelson at the Battle of 
Copenhagen. He thrust his line between ships and 
forts, reasoning that where the former had room to 
swing, other vessels had room to sail ; but still the fret- 
fully agitated enemy might be- closed in with, and 
the smaller and quicker-firing guns be used effectively 
upon the elusive targets. 

To the astonishment of all, on both sides, on the 
contrary, the order to "^ Cease firing '' was heard 
through the bugle-call, on the attacking decks, and 
the Americans withdrew out of range, after two and 
a half -hours' severe and steady fighting. 

In the meantime the shore batteries had been ex- 
pending their ammunition and practising — the result 
was little better — although the hostile squadron did 
not deign to reply to them, after the first volley, which 
silenced the outer ones. 

Word was sent ashore, during this pause, for the 
Governor to stop firing from the land, or the city 
would be shelled. This threat stopped up the guns 
at three positions on the mole and on the wall of the 
town. The subsequent events occurred solely be- 
tween the seamen of the two nations. 



76 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

It may be inserted here that the little McChiUongh 
sought to emulate the risky conduct of the British 
gunboat Condor at the bombardment of Alexandria. 
This little wasp ran under the guns of a ponderous 
battery, and, dodging its replies, peppered away at it 
all day until the Egyptians fled from their guns ! 

The McCuUougliAeii the cover of her big sister, 
the Olympia, and darted right into the harbor, where 
she assailed the armed merchantman, the Mindanao, 
and riddled her with her bow-chaser so that she 
became unseaworthy. 

Every one wanted to bear a hand into this sea- 
victory. 

The men were immensely puzzled at the resjpite. 
They had thought to keep on till not a ship remained 
in opposition. 

The explanation seemed insufficient. They be- 
lieved they had done well, and were anxious to con- 
tinue until the Spaniards were all sent to the bottom, 
'i'he crew of the Ohjmpia cheered the Commodore 
and the Baltimore, and the latter returned the com- 
pliment. One of the captains of a gun crew, after 
inquiring of a number of officers as to the reason of 
the suspension of hostilities, was told grimly " for 
breakfast." He made his way immediately to Cap- 
tain Gridley and exclaimed : 

*^' For heaven's sake. Captain, don't let us stop 
now. A fig for breakfast ! " 

It w^as, perhaps, solely to the men in the inmost 
depths, the stokers, that the rest came preciously. 
It was said that the forced draft on the Olympia sent 
the temperature up to two hundred degrees, so that 
the men's beards were singed ! 

Nevertheless, on being freshened up, they were 
not the last to desire the renewal of the action. 

The damage done to the enemy could be partially 
leeu. The shore batteries were not to interfere. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 7/ 

that was arranged now ; and the minor craft of the 
Spanish could not be very eager for the second 

bout. 

Meawhile the captains came aboard the flag-ship 
to compare notes and report casualties. 

The chief had been most anxious about the Boston, 
as she had been seen on fire : a shot had entered 
like a hat-pin into a griddle-cake, but without killing 
any one ; the fire caused by it had been subdued. 

The other shots from the enemy had been mostly 
at random, and all penetrations of the armor had 
been slight. 

The disablement of half a dozen men was all the 
^QtYimQwt to i\\Q personnel which was reported. It 
was worse as regarded the ammunition, as the supply 
for the big guns was certainly not in excess. 

Meanwhile, the Spanish vessels began to be sub- 
merged or to burn or blow up, which restored con- 
fidence as to the result anticipated. 

It was clear that there might be provision enough 
for the large guns to finish with the more than deci- 
mated flotilla, which it was the order to disable or 
destroy. 

The attack was resumed in four hours, that is, at 
eleven o'clock. 

In the lull, the men had partaken of breakfast, ac- 
cording to that order which, telegraphed round the 
world, in the account of the decisive action, had drawn 
a hearty laugh from all Anglo-Saxons. A general 
had said that battles, on land, were to be won on 
the soldiers' legs ; another, that it was upon their 
stomachs, meaning, the English fight best when 
well fed. In this case, the check to the ardor of a 
combat to lunch was human and sensible : a poet 
has embalmed the stroke of human feeling in a line : 

" The greatest god of battles is he who cooks the grub'' 



78 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

By this time the forlorn condition of the discom- 
fited Spaniards was evident. While attention was 
still paid, on the fire opening anew, to the wrecks 
until the}^ offered no more resistance, it was on the 
remainder of the flotilla that the iron ruin was 
hurled. The last foe had to scuttle and sink, to 
avoid falling into our hands as a solitary prize. It 
wjis impossible for it to run out of the beleaguered 
harbor. 

Having not one vessel on which to maintain his 
flag, Admiral Montejo, who, besides, was wounded, 
took to the shore and was transported for surgical 
assistance into the town. 

The Commodore had been most anxious about the 
Boston, as she had been seen on fire ; but the shot 
had not done notable damage ; another from the 
Hontoria guns at Sangley Point had perforated the 
Baltimore, had wounded all the injured of the fleet, 
namely, eight ; but while two poor fellows had broken 
limbs, the other wounds were little to dread. Five 
of our floating batteries had concentrated their sixty 
guns on that seat of irritation and settled the dispute 
on the spot. 

Not a vessel crippled ; not a fatality among the 
men ! Such a blank is amazing when one compares 
it with the list of losses in the olden sea-fights. At 
Aboukir, the winners lost all but 1,000 men ; at 
Trafalgar, the English lost 2,500 against the French 
7,000 ; atXavarino, the '• butcher's bill" was G,000 ; 
at Lissa, combat of ironclads, 860 to 176. 

But the Spanish had severely suffered, and the 
white flag fluttered swiftly to the top of the masts, 
as if inspired with eagerness to express the oj^inion 
along shore that the victory was undoubted. 

Shortly afterwards, the white flag was run up. 

Our triumph was complete, 

Manila was now shut in ; Cavite Arsenal lay at 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. ^9 

tlie mercy of the victors, with the stores of which 
they had need, to serve as the base which we liad 
desired in the East. 

The cable was cut so that the only communication 
with Spain lay through the one at Hong Kong, which, 
of course, across the sea controlled by our cruisers, 
was out of the question. 

Dewey was isolated, but the master of the situation. 



CHAPTER Vm. 

the official report of the victory. 

"Flagship Olympia, Oavite, 
May 4, 1898. 

" The squadron left Mirs Bay on April 27, arrived 
off Boliiiuo on the morning of April 30, and, finding 
no vessels there, proceeded down the coast and ar- 
rived oif the entrance to Manila Bay on the same 
afternoon. The Boston and the Concord were sent 
to reconnoiter Port Subig. A thorough search was 
made of the port by the Boston and the Concord, but 
the Spanish fleet was not found. 

•^Entered the south channel at half-past eleven 
p. M., steaming in column at eight knots. After 
half the squadron had passed a battery on the south 
side of the channel opened fire, none of the shots 
taking effect. The Boston and McCullough returned 
the fire. The squadron proceeded across the bay at 
slow speed and arrived off Manila at daybreak (May 
1st, 1898), and was fired upon at a quarter past five 
A. M. by three batteries at Manila and two near 
Cavite, and by the Spanish fleet anchored in an ap- 
proximately east and west line across the mouth of 



So THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Baker Bay, with their left in shoal water in Canacao 
Bay. 

'^The squadron then proceeded to the attack, the 
flag-ship Olpnjjia, under my personal direction, 
leading, followed at a distance by the Baltimore, 
Raleigh, Petrel, Concord and Boston, in the order 
named, which formation was maintained throughout 
the action. 

*' The squadron opened fire at nineteen minutes 
to six A. M. While advancing to the attack two 
mines were exploded ahead of the flag-ship, too far 
to be effective. The squadron maintained a con- 
tinuous and precise fire at ranges varying from 5,000 
to 2,000 yards, counter-marching in a line approxi- 
mately parallel to that of the Spanish fleet. The 
enemy's fire was vigorous, but generally ineffective. 
Early in the engagement two launches put out to- 
ward the Olympia with the apparent intention of 
using torpedoes. One was sunk and the other dis- 
abled by our fire and beached before they were able 
to fire their torpedoes. 

'^ At seven A. m. the Spanish flag-ship Reina Cris- 
tina made a desperate attempt to leave the line and 
come out to engage at short range, but was received 
with such a galling fire, the entire battery of the Olym- 
pia being concentrated upon her, that she was barely 
able to return to the shelter of the point. The fires 
started in her by our shell at the time were not 
extinguished until she sank. 

^' The three batteries at Manila had kept up a 
continuous fire from the beginning of the engage- 
ment, which fire was not returned by my squadron. 
The first of these batteries was situated on the south 
mole head at the entrance of the Pasig River, the 
second on the south position of the walled city of 
Manila, and the third at Malate, about one-half mile 
farther south. At this point I sent a message to the 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 8l 

Governor-General to the effect that if the batteries 
did not cease firing the city would be shelled. This 
had the effect of silencing them. 

"At twenty-five minutes to eight A. M. I ceased 
firing and withdrew the squadron for breakfast. At 
sixteen minutes after eleven I returned to the at- 
tack. By this time the Spanish flag-ship and almost 
all the Spanish fleet Avere in flames. At half-past 
twelve the squadron ceased firing, the batteries being 
silenced and the ships sunk, burned and deserted. 

'* At twenty minutes to one the squadron returned 
and anchored off Manila, the Petrel being left behind 
to complete the destruction of tlie smaller gunboats, 
which were behind the point of Cavite. This duty 
was performed by Commander E. P. Wood in the 
most expeditious and complete manner possible. 
The Spanish lost the following vessels : — Sunk, 
Reina Cristina, CastiJla, Don Antonio de Ulloa ; 
burned, Don Juan de Austria, IsJa de Luzon, Isla 
de Cuba, General Lezo, Marques del Duero, El Correo, 
Velasco and Isla de Mindanao (transport) ; captured, 
Rapido and Hercules (tugs) and several small 
launches. 

'^ I am unable to obtain complete accounts of the 
enemy's killed and wounded, but believe their losses 
to be very heavy. The Reina Cristina alone had 
one hundred and fifty killed, including the captain, 
and ninety wounded. I am happy to report that the 
damage done to the squadron under my command 
was inconsiderable. There was none killed and only 
seven men in the squadron were slightly wounded. 
Several of the vessels were struck and even pene- 
trated, but the damage was of the slightest, and the 
squadron is in as good condition now as before the 
battle. 

'^ I beg to state to the department that I doubt 
if any commander-in-chief was ever served by more 
6 



82 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

loyal, efficient and gallant captains than those of the 
squadron under my command. Captain Frank- 
Wildes, commanding the Boston, volunteered to re- 
main in command of his vessel, although his relief 
arrived before leaving Hong Kong. Assistant Sur- 
geon Kindelberger, of the Olympia, and Gunner 
J. C. Evans, of the Boston, also volunteered to re- 
main after orders detaching them had arrived. 

*^ The conduct of my personal staff was excellent. 
Commander B. P. Lamberton, Chief of Staff, was a 
volunteer for that position, and gave me most efficient 
aid. Lieutenant 13rumby, flag lieutenant, and En- 
sign E. P. Scott, aid, performed their duties as signal 
officers in a highly creditable manner. Caldwell, 
flag secretary, volunteered for and was assigned to a 
subdivision of the 5-inch battery. Mr. J. L. Stick- 
ney, formerly an officer in the United States Navy, 
and now correspondent for the Nnu York Herald, 
volunteered for duty as my aid, and rendered val- 
uable service. I desire especially to mention the 
coolness of Lieutenant C. G. Calkins, the navigator 
of the Olympia, who came under my personal ob- 
servation, being on the bridge with me througliout 
the entire action and giving the ranges of the guns 
with an accuracy that was proven by the excellence 
of the firing. 

^' On May 2, the day following the engagement, 
the squadron again went to Cavite, where it remains. 
On the 3d the military forces evacuated the Cavite 
arsenal, which was taken possession of by a landing 
party. On the same day the Raleigh and Baltimore 
secured the surrender of the batteries on Corregidor 
Island, paroling the garrison and destroying the 
guns. On the morning of May 4 the transport 
Manila, which had been aground in Bakor Bay, was 
towed off and made a prize." 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEV. 8^ 



CHAPTER IX. 

FElSrCING FOR TIME. — THE INSURRECTION" AND ITS 
HEAD. — THE MOCK TREATY. — WHILE HELP WAS 
DUE.— OUR '' ALLIES." — GUARDING THE PRIZE. 

The victorious fleet now lay at Sangley Point, near 
Cavite, commanding a view of the two inlets at the 
Bay mouth, and having Manila under its guns. 

The shore was dotted with the ruins of the vessels 
partly sunk ; smokestacks and short masts stuck up 
like bones of mastodons in an antediluvian cemetery. 

Beyond, rolled the ocean where never more would 
the Spaniard domineer ; he was now cowering between 
the conqueror and the rebels, of whom he had long 
since lost the confidence, and the power to re-fasten 
the yoke. 

News of the glorious action had been despatched 
to Hong Kong for Washington, as the other means 
of telegraphic communication was severed. 

Early next morning, Monday, order was given for 
Captain Laniberton to take possession of Cavite town 
and arsenal. This gallant officer had come from 
home to take command of the Boston, but its own 
captain, though his time was up, had pleaded so 
warmly to retain his post during the battle impend- 
ing, that his entreaty was granted. By way of com- 
pensation, the arrangements of the transfer of Cavite 
were placed in his hands. 

The Petrel conveyed him and a landing-party for 
escort to the jetty. 

Fully aware of the traditional treachery of the 
Spanish, also an everyday tale in the Orient, Lamber- 



84 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

ton prndently desired the captain of the Petrel to 
allow him an hour only within the lines of the heaten 
forces ; if he did not reappear then, the man-of-war 
might fire on the place and rescue him dead, if he 
were not fated to come forth alive. 

That would be ten a.m. 

As a fact, the intruder found the arsenal guarded 
by some eight hundred marines {Infiniteria cle la 
Mari7ia), well armed with the Mauser rifle of which 
we heard frightful things in the Cuban campaign. 
This was hardly the proper aspect of a capitulating foe. 

The envoy was received by Captain Sostoa, R. N., 
in the absence of his admiral. 

The visiting party, comprising Dewey^s aid, and 
Lieutenant Wood, with the messenger, were soon 
encompassed by what might be curious soldiers but 
more resembled a guard. 

^' How comes it,'' was tlie question put indignantly 
without hesitation, " that this place is filled with men 
under all arms, though you ran up the white flag 
yesterday, in token, we suppose, of complete surren- 
der ? '' 

The Spaniard replied with the morgue, or phlegm, 
of his nation, that they had not hoisted the blank 
flas: in sign of defeat, but merely to cover women and 
children being removed to a safer spot. 

This evasion was enough to make anybody frown. 

The American shortly returned that the non-com- 
batants ought to have been removed long before, and 
that no one in modern warfare recognized such 
devices. 

The other retorted that they had no time, in truth, 
as the Yankees had begun so early — caught them nap- 
ping, in short ! It was the kind of reproof the old 
Austrian general uttered against Bonaparte because 
he had taken his citadel contrary to the tactics up to 
then in vogue. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 85 

" But you fired the first shot ! " was remonstrated. 

Lamberton did not trouble to continue the discus- 
sion : he plainly announced that he had come to 
take possession of the place ; if it were not surren- 
dered, the fleet would again open fire. 

This threat staggered the other, who had expected 
to gain time— perhaps, till the eternal ''to-morrow" 
of his race and that latitude. He urged that he 
must consult with his superiors, as he was only a navy 
captain. He also wanted the demand put in writing. 
This was done, as a formality, but there was no more 
shilly-shally. Besides, it was dangerous to linger, 
since the Petrel, as was agreed, might turn on her 
guns ; the hour was nearly expired. 

So Captain Sostoa was allowed two hours to settle 
with his admiral, and the governor of the province 
and city, before repeating their decision. 

The party hastened to re-embark and cross the 
Bay to communicate the report. 

At 10:45, the white flag went up once more : the 
surrender was undisputed this time ; but there is 
always a card up the sleeve of the Peninsulars : 
when the marines landed to take charge, they found 
nobody there, it is true, but all the sailors, navy- 
yard men and marines had marched ofl with all the 
weapons, small arms and muskets, which is contrary 
to established usage in such cases. 

'' The scurvy rats ! " remarked a seaman, '' I won- 
der they did not blow up the stores ! " n • ^ 

Shortly after the occupation of the port and Cavite, 
happened one of the comic incidents of the war. 

One dav, a pert little gunboat ran up into the Bay. 
She had the red-and-yellow flying and, with all the 
confidence of the world, made straight for the flag- 
ship as if it were Tom Thumb emboldened to attack 
a giant. As in duty bound, two or three vessels, in 
the road, incontinently opened fire upon her with 



86 THE LliFE AND CAREER 

six-pounders, for she was right in amongst them 
before they could recover from their amaze at 
such audacity. 

These loaded shots were taken for simple salutes, 
it would seem, for it did not stay the Callao — such 
was her name — in the least. Saucy and reckless, 
she continued to run a-muck at the Olympia. 

But when a live shell ripped the sun-blind clean 
across her waspy waist, her commander must have 
perceived that he was very much out of his calcula- 
tions ; indeed, he had mistaken the fleet for his own 
and the flag-ship for Admiral Montejo's. He had been 
living in the woods — that is to say, more precisely, 
coasting — and was totally unaware not only that 
war had been declared between the U. S. A. and the 
Kingdom of Spain, but that the fleet he sought had 
been devastated and now strewed the shores, and the 
admiral, to whom he thought to report, was laid on 
a bed of pain after his flag-ship had been cleft to the 
water's edge. 

This nautical Rip van Winkle, whose real name was 
Pau, was now undeceived by the officer who went 
aboard in his cutter and demanded his sword. 

It is said that his blank face, immediately wearing 
an expression of astonishment, would have been a 
fortune to a low comedian. 

After all, no one blamed him for the blunder, as he 
made our navy a pretty little present ; the Callno 
was built for these shallow estuaries, and was promptly 
put in commission to chase his fellow-countrymen 
in the coast outposts. 

As tender to the Concord, she soon did the States 
some service. 

By the 16th of May, the blockade was strictly estab- 
lished over Manila. Trade was paralyzed, of course, 
and a scarcity of provisions prevailed. 

All over the country, the news of the strangers 



OF ADiMIRAL DEWEY. 8/ 

having soundly thrashed the hereditary foes and 
cooped them up in the city was carried by word of 
mouth, but with a celerity which beats the tele- 
phone. The rebel army, which had been disbanded 
nominally when, in 1897, its leader accepted a sum 
of money from the mother-country, began to flock 
under arms anew — said arms being in many cases a 
cane pointed and " steeled " in the bush-fire. They 
appeared on the landside of Manila, and so zealously 
harried the garrison that this was frying between 
two fires, theirs and the fleet. 

Our Admiral, as he began to be called— for he 
was promoted from Acting Rear-Admiral to a full 
Rear- Admiral's dignity in July, and created a full 
Admiral in December, 1898 (the pupil of Farragut 
holding at last the honor handed down to Admiral 
Porter, and held by no other in the interim)— our Ad- 
miral sent word home that he could take the town 
'' at any hour.'' But he had as yet no force to hold 
it. 

Since help from the States came so slowly, for it 
would seem that the importance of our conquest was 
not realized in Washington, it was necessary to keep 
the Spanish employed on land by other hands. 
^ Therefore, the chief of the native party in opposi- 
tion to the tottering government was solicited to fling 
his brand again into the conflagration. 

_ It was Emilio Aguinaldo, the Bolivar of the Philip- 
pines. 

Who is Aguinaldo ? was the natural question in 
America when it was learnt that this was the name 
of one whom Admiral Dewey allowed to be transport- 
ed with his immediate followers from China, where 
he had been fostered by our Consul, upon a gover- 
ment vessel. And, more to the purpose, as soon as 
he landed at Cavite, on May 19th, to raise again the 
rebel flag, not soon to be hauled down, he was lib- 



88 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

erally supplied with modern martial equipment out 
of the plentiful Spanish stores in the arsenal. 

The earlier history of the Philippine Colony is that 
of all under the Spanish scepter ; the iron hand is 
only relaxed that the slave may breathe again and 
do another day's work. 

The natives, meek though they are for the main 
part, had enough of the human spirit to revolt now 
and then, and try to throw off the insufferable yoke. 
Ignorant as the masses are, they had leaders who had 
caught a glimpse of freedom in other spots, in trav- 
els in Europe or our more enlightening lands. 
These on their return, simultaneously Avith the 
Cubans, in that freedom's fight never done, organized 
a Revolutionary Junta, which kept galling the Vice- 
roy's side. 

Steel and garotte had done their utmost without 
avail, but it was thought that gold would serve the 
purpose better ; though gold was the metal impov- 
erished Spain had the least of, it was found for the 
pacification of the Philippines. 

In 1897, it was telegraphed to the world in general 
and for the rejoicing of the Spanish bondholder in 
particular, that the Philippine Insurrection was at 
an end. Unable to procure arms through the excel- 
lent cordon around the islands at last completed by 
the masters, the rebels were helpless and their chiefs 
had listened to the counselor, aided by the music of 
rattling coin. 

The Junta Patriotica, with whom the agent of 
Spain had dealt, was composed of a president, home, 
foreign, and war secretary. The president, Agui- 
naldo, and a kinsman filled two of the offices. 

Emilio Aguinaldo y FamoSjborn of a good provin- 
cial family of Cavite, was educated at Manila for the 
legal profession. 

As in France, the bar leads to the barricade or the 



1 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 89 

judge's bench jnst as the advocate speaks for people 
or patrician. 

He was actively concerned in the opposition afield 
against the tyrants in the fall of 1896, but he did not 
become a leader until a noted insurrectionist, Dr. 
Rizal, was executed and left him a place in the Rebel 
Cabinet. 

As president, he had the management of the nego- 
tiation on the weaker side. 

Eight hundred thousand Mexican dollars, say half 
that amount in our currency, was the bribe, for all 
the arms the Junta's followers held to be given up, 
while these active though unfaithful spirits were 
prudently to go away from the islands and stay aloof 
at the will of the Home Government. They were to 
use all their influence while at home in disbanding 
and disarming their forces, and keep up the peace- 
ful arguments from a distance. 

Neither of the parties trusted the other — '^ Ar- 
cades a7nbo/' or, as Lord Byron translated it : 
'^ Blackguards both !'' So, while Home Secretary 
of the Revolutionists Artacho surrendered to the 
Captain-General of the Philippines as a hostage, his 
chief went to neutral ground, that is. Hong Kong, 
the British trading-port of China, to receive the first 
instalment of the cash. 

Half the money, as earnest, was, in truth, waiting 
in the bank there. 

So Aguinaldo telegraphed that Artacho could be 
let loose. He, too, hurried to the spot, in hot haste, 
to finger his share of the hush money. 

Artacho wanted to have the funds to divide it 
among the leaders according to their rank, in which 
case he would have a lion's share. But Aguinaldo, 
more honorably, insisted that it was a trust fund to 
be held until it was seen how the Spaniards carried 
out their side of the contract. It they behaved ill, 



90 THE LIFE AND CAREfik 

the money would be justly used in renewing the war ! 
Artacho had attached the deposit however, so tliat 
no one could handle it, unless his embargo was re- 
moved. He was finally calmed by a plaster of five 
thousand. The rest was turned into the exchequer 
of the rebellion, and the Spanish are believed to know 
that it was thus s]3ent. 

The treaty between insurrectionists and royalists 
was signed and, as usual in these mock ^' pacifica- 
tions,'^ the party of the first part began to cheat and 
distort the clauses. 

Insurgents who had been sent into penal servitude 
— and the horrors of Spanish convicts deserve a page 
alongside that of Russia's — were not released ac- 
cording to proviso. Other leaders were punished as 
soon as they fell into tlie soldiers' hands ; and the 
whole colony was bled worse than before ; it was Dr. 
Sangrado in office, witliout even replacing the vital 
fluid he drew with warm water. 

The reforms promised were important and exten- 
sive, too much so for their execution to be believed 
other than a delusion. Restrict the powers of the 
religious orders — this to be done by the Most Catho- 
lic of Monarchies ! Let the Philippines be properly 
represented in the Spanish Cortez (Congress) — Lord 
North would sooner have greeted a Quaker or a Mo- 
hegan on the peers' benches in the House of Lords ! 
Justice and law to be the same for native and 
Spaniard in the colonies ! Natives to hold offices ! 
what would the nobles' younger sons do ! and, most 
outrageous of pledges to be believed honest — the 
press was to be free ! 

It is with such treaties that Satan fires up his 
furnaces ! 

Not only were none of the promises put into fact, 
but the contrary was the course. 

The Captain-General, Primo de Rivera, was called 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. QI 

home in order that a successor might be substitntcd 
who would not know the real state of the case and hoAV 
the natives, merchants and foreigners regarded the re- 
bellion. If a few pardons were granted, perhajis, to 
traitors, the general amnesty was never issued. The 
religious orders were given enlarged power, those 
that caused the outbreak at the first being signally 
honored. Before General de Rivera departed, he 
denied there was any agreement, and had executions 
take place of persons who had his own assurance 
they would be protected. But he returned to Spain, 
to receive his reward for this sham 'Opacification" — 
a grand cross of one order or another ! He was a 
" Prince of Peace " after the manner of Godoy, be- 
cause he had killed those who might cry out against 
him ! 

The Filipinos urge these breaches as grounds for 
their renewing the insurrection, and this time not to 
be blocked by words, words and more words ! 

Aguinaldo, whom his countrymen believe not to 
have any of the Spanish coin stuck to his fingers, 
must have thought the renewal of the confiict far 
from hopeful. He was on the way to Europe, when 
the news reached him at Singapore that the Maine 
man-of-war had been mysteriously blown up in 
Havana Harbor. Familiar with the Spanish, he 
guessed that this was no accident, and that it could 
not be explained away or smoothed over with Banco- 
de-Espana shin-plasters to the astute Yankees. So 
he sniffed the gigantic typhoon brewing and re- 
traced his steps. Like the petrel, he might gather 
his support out of the havoc wrought by the tem- 
pest inevitably about to burst on his country's 
enslaver. 

In Singapore he opened negotiations with our 
consul, Mr. Pratt, and he claims that he was led on 
to believe that the independence of the Philippines 



92 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

would be his reward if he helped the United States 
to oust the Spanish. 

He is not so foolish, having extraordinary intelli- 
gence for one of his race, which are not dolts, as to 
credit a consul with authority to pledge his govern- 
ment, but we must acknowledge that when he 
landed in Manila Bay and found our Admiral lord of 
the sea, but unable to drive the Spanish out of the 
city because he could not hold it down if it were 
vacated, he miglit reasonably think his furnishing 
the land forces desired would justify even high pre- 
tensions for recompense. 

When war was certain, though not yet proclaimed, 
Aguinaldo hastened to Hong Kong to try to accom- 
pany the Admiral to the scene of strife. This at- 
tempt is what led to the romantic story that he did 
so sail with him and even piloted him through the 
inlet into Manila Bay ! It is as likely as that he fur- 
nished him with a chart of the port, with the places 
of the submarine defenses laid down ! — as if the rebels 
would have been so far in the confidence of the 
Royal Navy ! 

There was one Filipino on board, it is granted, but 
it was an interpreter in case any fishermen were 
picked up to be impressed as pilot. 

The only fact known is, that after being about the 
Consulate in Hong Kong most persistently, Agui- 
naldo and his cohort, securing a pass from the Ad- 
miral, were shipped by Consul-General Wildman, 
who was always the Rebel President's good friend, to 
be landed at Cavite, with what authority his travel- 
ing under the American flag may give. 

The foreigners thought he was our ally, in a more 
or less humble way. And the natives, naturally, be- 
lieved he had secured all but our open adhesion. 

It was gladly rumored among our men that the 
home country was at last properly roused to the 




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OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 93 

dead -lock at Manila. It was reported on all sides, 
on the faith of family letters, that a regular army 
was being put on transports at San Francisco, that 
a volunteer army was being raised to the same end, 
and that not only were supply vessels being chartered, 
at least, but that monitors Avere bound for Cavite. 
Oh, to have had ten regiments and a couple of field 
batteries on the main land, then ! 

Aguinaldo was intensely active : he issued, after 
the style of the Spanisli-Filipinos, proclamation on 
proclamation. He more than hinted that the United 
States, which had frightened the old foe of his 
country out of South America, and the French out 
of Mexico, and were expelling their own tyrant from 
Cuba, their sister-sufferer, was about to give them 
the helping hand to finish the struggle renewed. 

He proposed a Dictatorship (himself in the office) 
and aft Advisory Council, until there was a free 
Philippines I He forbade farther parleying with 
the Spanish, as their words only preluded ^active de- 
ception. He would treat as spies all Spanish who 
came to treat with him unless they had credentials 
to allovv independence and make a binding peace. 
The Filipino who bargained about his country was to 
be hanged and labeled ''Traitor to his Xativeland ! " 

He farther decreed, quite with enlightenment : 
_ Foreigners are to be respected in^their lives and 
liberties. This included Chinese, and even those 
Spanish who had not borne arms against tlie Fili- 
pinos or actively abetted the Spanish ; the enemy 
who surrendered shortly was to be also shielded in 
goods and person. 

Hospitals, ambulances and the like were to be re- 
spected, unless their guards showed fight. As for 
infringers of these laws, they were to be court-mar- 
tialed and shot if their acts had caused bloodshed, 
incendiarism, robbery or riot. 



94 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

It was as good a pro7iu7iciamento as the Spaniards, 
masters in this high-fahiting composition, could 
publish. 

Thanks to these utterances, and what was left of 
the money before mentioned, General Aguinaldo 
had collected a thousand men in a week (May 29th), 
under his flag, which is a red band above a blue one, 
with a white diamond partly showing with its point 
away from the staif. 

They had no uniform, it is true, which matters 
nothing where a man is prone to fight in the Georgia 
colonel's costume — a shirt-collar and a pair of spurs 
— that is, a blouse and a straw hat ; but his followers 
lacked weapons. They had not even the machete of 
the Cubans. 

Admiral Dewey came gallantly to their relief. He 
could not but admire this rabble which, however, 
had already shaken the Spaniard in his stronghold 
and made him shrink from engaging them in the 
marshes. He had plenty of small arms and appur- 
tenances abandoned in the Cavite arsenal, and he 
supplied his improvised auxiliaries, together with 
ammunition ; they were mostly Mauser rifles, and 
some lookers-on did not hesitate to afiirm tliat the 
rebels were now armed better than the Americans 
would be who were hastening over-sea to succor 
them. 

It was necessary to arm them well, as the Spanish 
had sent the pick of their military into the East 
Indies. 

Moreover, Aguinaldo had certainly been applying 
some of the Spanish " reptile-fund " to patriotic pur- 
poses, as a small steamer arrived from China carry- 
ing for them three thousand Remington breech- 
loaders with cartridges complete. 

Those who have seen the most stolid savage melt 
and break out into ecstasy over a weapon of such 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 95 

price as he never dreamt to possess, may conceive 
the joy of the insurgents at this armament. 

The Americans hegan to be more cheerful them- 
selves as advices came to hand, showing that, at 
length, supplies and men were on the long way. 
The Cruiser Charleston might be soon expected, as 
she had left San Francisco with provisions, if no 

troops. 

On Mav 25th, the transports City of Peking, City 
of Sydney, and the Australia, all British, since we 
had no merchant reserve to draw upon in the Pacific, 
sailed out of the Golden Gate with not only two 
thousand five hundred soldiers, but a year's supply 
of food, with naval stores, and the peculiar ammuni- 
tion for the machine and other complicated ship 
guns. 

If the Filipinos, armed at last, were not affected 
by this good intelligence, they were inspired into 
making short work of their long-time foe. In the 
night of the 26th, General Aguinaldo sent five hun- 
dred of his choicest irregulars over Bakor Creek, 
which is to the southward of Old Cavite, in order to 
separate the Spanish garrison there from another 
troop at the Powder Magazine. The Americans could 
follow the movement in a measure as the Filipinos, 
like our Southwestern savages, use fire-pillars by day 
and smoke-columns by night as a mode of signaling. 
In this case, to give the heated vapor a shape, they 
used a stove-pipe, on the beach, the stopping of the 
fumes being managed by clapping a hat over the 
orifice. 

The five hundred succeeded in making prisoners 
of all the soldiers on the shore, except at Old Cavite, 
better protected by the Old Church and the strong 
walls of other ecclesiastical buildings. The ancient 
Spanish were no ^^ jerry " builders : they used such 
good mortar that in places one may see it firm in 



96 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

the chinks, while the stone has crnmbled away in 
course of time. 

It was said that, for a novelty, the Spanish were 
housed fairly and treated better than ever before in 
the guerrilla warfare of the islands. American in- 
fluence was already ameliorating conditions. 



CHAPTER X. 

SUCCESS OF THE REBELS. — AN AMUSING EPISODE. — 
BULLYING AND BACKING DOWN. — THE PEACE. — 
DISAPPOINTMENT TO THE INSURGENTS. 

Hanging back from assaulting Old Cavite, the 
rebels gradually drove the enemy into the improvised 
fort of the church there, and sat down to besiege 
them, hoping to starve them out. 

It was known, about the opening of June, that 
Admiral Dewey had his replacing officer designated 
in Rear- Admiral J. C. Watson, who was en route to 
take over the arduous office of overcoming the 
Spanish and dealing with the insurrection. 

But it was not supposed that Dewey would quit 
until the Philippines were quieted. 

On the 13th of June, it was reported that the in- 
surgents had captured 2,500 prisoners. There was 
no knowing what to do with them. The captors 
had a difficulty as well as a repugnance to feeding 
and caring for them ; their own comrades, hemmed 
in at Manila, wanted no more companions in misery, 
and, logically, they could not be " cabined, cribbed 
and confined " on board the fleet. 

On the head of this came the news that a thousand 
more, harassed, famished and hunted till footsore, 
had also surrendered to the natives. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 97 

These felt '^ the embarrassment of " — poverty — not 
of riches. 

Here occurred another of those laughable events 
which makes the Muse of history soften her stern 
features and wear a fleeting smile. 

Our cruiser, the Charleston, as stated, had left the 
Californian port on the 22d of the previous month, 
convoying the three vessels forming the first Manila 
Relief Expedition. 

On the 20th day of June she reached the Ladrone 
Islands. 

These waters have their tragic memories, for, to 
say nothing of numerous piracies and cannibalistic 
feasts on their coral strands, Magellan was slain by 
the savages of Samar, and his expedition, dwindled 
down to one ship and less than twenty men, returned 
to Spain in melancholy straits. 

But the anticipated resistance was not encountered 
in even the faintest degree. 

The man-of-war steamed into Port San Luis 
d^\pra. Island of Guam, and fired thirteen shells at 
the fortifications. There was no response, but two 
small boats put out from shore and approached the 
cruiser. They contained the captain of the port 
and the health officer, who apologized for not 
returning the salute, owing to the fact that the 
proper means were not at their disposal. 

Captain Glass, of the Charleston, astonished the 
Spanish officers by telling them that his guns had 
been fired, not as a salute, but as a demand for sur- 
render. The Spaniards, like the master of the gun- 
boat Callao, cut off entirely from the outside world, 
were quite unaware that war had been declared be- 
tween the United States and Spain. 

Lieutenant Braunersreuther, with a force of 
marines, Avent ashore, notified the Governor of the 
condition of affairs, and demanded his surrender. 
7 



98 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

This official, Senor Jose Marina, was thunderstruck, 
He and his staff were taken on board the Charleston, 
and the next day started for Manila, after seeing the 
Stars and Stripes waving over the government 
buildings. 

The newcomers reported that two or more monitors 
were coming to make Manila a certain American 
stronghold. 

It was time. One Power was beginning to loom 
up as a menace. 

The German difficulty may be recounted at this 

page. 

Spain had long ago found her distant possessions, 
with their dissatisfied and turbulent populations, 
white elephants on her hands. 

In 1835, her French creditors being clamorous 
under the reign of the ''Citizen-King" Louis 
Philippe, when Stock Exchange operations were be- 
coming a weighty element in governmental politics, 
she proposed selling them to France. 

Cuba was offered at thirty millions of dollars and 
Porto Rico and the Philippines, lotted together as 
at an auction sale, were fixed at ten millions. The 
French clutched at the former prize, to augment 
their West Indian colonies, sadly curtailed by the 
British spoliations in recent wars, but gibed at 
paying the rate settled for the other articles. 

Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of England, was 
agreed on as arbitrator, and he said that these were 
estimated too highly. This demurrer offended the 
Spanish grandee wlio was the salesman and, in a 
huff, he literally flung the papers into the fire, and 
threw up the negotiation. 

]^ow, in 1 898, up came a similar possible escape 
from the dilemma. But it was obligatory to deal 
sharply — as it was even now the selling of a bone in 
the dog's mouth, since the Philippines were under 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 99 

the guns of Dewey. And the monitors, of which 
the European navies have always had a good opinion 
as harbor defenders, were coming. 

It leaked ont that the Spanish Premier, Sagasta, 
pushed to do something to relieve the tension in 
Madrid, where the Queen Regent threatened to ab- 
dicate and leave the realm between Carlists and 
Republicans, was angling for the Germans to inter- 
vene. He proposed for five hundred million marks, 
or twenty million dollars (the price had gone up in 
sixty years ! ), to allow the Kaiser Wilhelm to estab- 
lish a protectorate over the debatable islands — the 
Americans to the contrary notwithstanding ! There- 
upon, the Spanish would devote the money to ef- 
fectually prosecuting the Cuban War ! 

Little did he foresee what would happen to 
Cervera's fleet before another Fourth of July should 
dawn. 

More or less in consequence of this project, the 
Germans began to show a troublesome front in the 
Asiatic seas. 

On the other hand, it looked as if the Royal Gov- 
ernment would soon have no leg at home to stand 
on, while trying to sell what was only nominally in 
the market. The Cortez was dissolved — all was at 
sixes-and-sevens — (not the Spanish funds, very much 
lower ! ) and martial law was proclaimed in Madrid. 

In this month of June, there came before Manila, 
sixteen hundred sokliers on four German war-ships of 
their East Asian Squadron. This manifestation was os- 
tensibly to protect German interests in those waters, 
which,at Manila,at all events, did not amount to a paper 
of pins. Something of this sort, it may be recalled, 
instigated the Samoan imbroglio. It required all of 
our Admiral's tact, rock-like firmness, inflexible 
courtesy and exalted trust in our manifest destiny 
in this quarter of the globe, to avoid an international 



lOO THE LIFE AND CAREER 

struggle to which the brief crushing of effete Spain 
in the far East would be as a tempest in a tea-pot. 

On all sides were causes of irritation from these 
interlopers. German officers are exceedingly yield- 
ing as regards their superiors, but they will "^show 
arrogance and a quarrelsome air towards strangers. 
This has been prevalent since the Franco-Prussian 
War. 

The word seemed passed that bones should be 
thrown out every day to have a casus belli before our 
reinforcements, military and naval, were actually 
landed to cliange the whole face of the American 
capture. 

The German officers landed in Manila to be greeted 
there by their Spanish compeers as though they were 
brothers, certainly sympathetic if not absolutely 
friendly. More than once, after the blockade was in 
force, the Germans made a flourish of saluting the 
Spanish flag as if to be conspicuous, not to say soli- 
tary, as the British and the French did not notice 
it ; while the Japanese, flushed with their triumph 
over the Chinese lifting them into prominence as a 
naval power, only once paid it any deference. 

It looked as if the German officers had free leave 
to goon shore, carrying news to their intimates in 
the Spanish trenches, where they had the run of the 
place as if they intended to post their marines there 
by and by. 

''The local press" of Manila (one official paper) 
boldly assured " their" readers that the subjects of 
the Kaiser were allies and would at once unmask if 
the '' Yankee Porkers" attempted any overt rough- 
ness to the threatened but still unconquered sons of 
the Cid. 

The day has gone by since Bismarck, asked if 
England and Germany would ever fight, replied 
with grim humor : 




FIGHTING TOP IN ACTION. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. lOI 

'' Does a bnll-dog attack a whale ?" meaning that 
England was unassailable upon the ocean. 

The current talk on the waters was ominous as 
concerned the pros2)ect of peace. 

The French sailors openly talked of the part they 
would take towards ^' the Great Eevenge/^ nursed 
since Sedan, in case the Germans and Americans 
came to loggerheads ; the British, witli all that old 
amity tersely put by our captain in the Chinese 
waters who said, on rescuing British seamen drown- 
ing under the Chinese forts : " Blood is thicker 
than water ! " made no pretense to withhold signs 
that they would be ranged alongside the OIyin])ia to 
turn the ram against the Kaiser's fleet ; the Japanese 
were likely to assist the natives if only for a fellow 
feeling for the color. 

It was even hinted, in this chaos of contention, 
that Japan was in the market, too, to acquire the 
Philippines ; — such as we did not care to manage ! 

The culmination of this ferment was near when 
the German Admiral, Diederichs, was given to under- 
stand with that bluntness which pierced through 
courtesy worn threadbare, that any craft, even the 
German, that got between the American guns and 
the Spanish ones, ran the risk without farther warn- 
ing of being blown out of water and being hurled 
more or less in an unserviceable condition into the 
Spanish lines. 

The German commander protested that no offense 
was meant, and said, in proof of which, that he was 
lessening the strength of his squadron : indeed, he 
detached two or three of the lighter vessels; but it 
was a sham maneuver, for these retired only a little 
way off, to Cebu, Mariveles and Subig Bay, whence 
they could have been recalled by the firing of cannon 
in conflict. 

On the 17th June, the McCuUough, which was a 



102 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

perfect Wandering Jew of the waters, in cruising 
about Corregidor Island, hailed the German frigate 
Irene — '^Want to speak you !" But the other 
ignored the pert little thing, and would have con- 
tinued her way but for a small boat putting out 
to intercept her. The Irene^s captain excused 
his not stopping as he had not understood the 
signal. 

This Irene was apparently chosen as a mischief- 
maker. She was wont to patrol the shore like a dog 
nosing out a fight. 

In July, she came upon a coasting-steamer called 
the Filijnnas, by the insurgents. This had been in 
the Spanish merchant service, and owned by Span- 
iards, but on a voyage the native crew had mutinied, 
under pretense of being inflamed with patriotism, 
killed the dozen Spaniards who officered them, and 
hoisted the Rebel colors. 

She had about half her cargo in, of tobacco, that 
is, three hundred tons, when she saw the German 
cruiser. Thinking it an enemy of some sort, she 
ran to hide in the coves of Subig Bay, where the 
Irene ferreted her out. The Germans threatened 
that she would be made a prize of and sent into 
Manila, with her crew as prisoners, unless she pulled 
down her unrecognized flag and, at least, hoisted the 
neutral one of white. 

They refused, and word was sent ashore. This 
was forwarded to the Americans, supposed to be tlie 
only ones authorized by rights of war ^' to police " 
the coast. 

Directly afterwards, the insurgents cleared the 
coast around Subig of the Spanish, who took refuge 
with wounded, sick and some women, on the Isla 
Granda, near the mouth of Subig Bay. Here the 
Irene stood in and haughtily warned the rebels to 
quit hostilities and leave their prey alone. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 103 

It was this conduct which caused the insurgents, 
very properly, to acquaint the new American " Cap- 
tain-General " at Manila with the intelligence of the 
upstart. 

Dewey sent the Raleigh and the Concord in haste 
to the spot, whence the Irene, nowise desirous to be 
pinched betwixt them, made off without either ex- 
planations or excuses, and the Spanish waited in vain 
for her encouragement in the future. 

On the Fourth of July, while the thrilling news of 
the destruction of Cervera's fleet at Santiago was in 
the air, our troops were landed from the relief fleet 
at Cavite. 

The soldiers, who were received with lusty cheers, 
which also beat out the chances of success in a Ger- 
man interference, brought the tidings that more 
troops were on the way, under command of a Major- 
General, H. G. Otis. 

On the 25th of July, landed Brigadier-General 
Merritt to take command of the land forces, preced- 
ing General Otis. 

Born a New Yorker, he entered West Point from 
Illinois July 1, 1855. He was a second lieutenant 
when the war broke out, and became a captain of 
the Second Cavalry April 5, 1862. He became brig- 
adier-general of volunteers June 29, 1863 ; brevet 
major-general, October 19, 1864, and major-general of 
volunteers April 1, 1865. He re-entered the Regular 
Army as lieutenant-colonel of the Ninth Cavalry 
July 28, 1866, was made colonel of the Fifth Cavalry 
ten years later, and received his present commission 
April 16, 1887. He earned his commission as major- 
general of volunteers for gallant services in the 
Virginia campaign, and received his brevet title of 
major-general for the same reason. 

There was to be no farther dilly-dallying, although 
the army of the U. S. A. on foot was not numerous. 



104 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Nevertheless, the Spanish were undermined with 
insiifficienc}' of food, cowed by the rebels who had 
gradually driven them all into the town or under 
cover, and, perhaps — according to deserters' stories, 
tired of the whole affair, which was considered des- 
perate. 

Practically all the Spanish on Luzon were now 
beleaguered in Manihi. On the side not menaced by 
our troops, the rebels presented an impassable array. 
There was a joint notice from Admiral Dewey and 
General Merritt tliat all non-combatants must quit 
the city within forty-eight hours or abide the result 
of the combined attack from tlie regulars, volunteers 
and blue-jackets. 

Surrounded, and the inhabitants being on the verge 
of starvation, the Commandant, General Jaudenes, 
begged time to communicate with Madrid and receive 
his final orders. 

This was on the 7th of August. 

The piteous appeal reached Madrid while Peace 
was overcoming the last ebullitions of Spanish pride, 
suffering the sorest blow to her prestige which she 
had ever known since the doom of the Armada. 

Montejo's fleet and Cervera's had suffered the same 
unsparing fate. The home fleet, under Admiral 
Camara, had been a " flying'* one in full acceptation 
of the title. 

Its behavior had certainly given its seamen plenty 
of change of air. It had hovered over the Spanish 
coast, lest an American fleet should arrive and bom- 
bard Cadiz, Barcelona or San Sebastian ; it had 
started to fall upon Dewey, but had been stopped in 
the gates of the Suez Canal by the ignoble plea that 
it should not pass unless it paid the tonnage fees ! 
Unfortunately, the naval chest was not in funds and 
all had to wait until the cash was, by some desperate 
expedient, obtained from the Capital — Spanish bonds 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I05 

trembling with paresis ! and then — had to return 
for want of coal ! 

Admiral Camara was like the king of nursery lore, 
wlio '^^ marched up the hill and then — marched down 
again ! " 

Commodore Watson was at the head of a flying 
squadron collected to go across the Atlantic and, 
if Camara continued to head for Manila, to overtake 
him ; or, if that failed, to follow him up and per- 
haps crush him between his vessels and Dewey's 
at Manila. A glorious consummation but, however 
devoutly wished for, by those who trusted to wipe 
out the tyrant Spain from the map of Europe, where 
she lias been a sanguinary blot, nothing like that 
occurred. 

Camara moored again in Spanish waters and fired 
no gun at the American colors. 

As sailors said, in their vulgar way but truthfully, 
^' Spain had the sick ! " 

Since 1897, they had undergone a great undeceiv- 
ing in the Old Country. 

Then, the returning General Primo de Rivera had 
been proclaimed ' ' the Pacificator of the Philippines/" 
The rejoicing was great and Madrid was draped in 
bunting and illuminated. 

We have set down what the real terms were, but 
tbey were differently stated for the Spanish people. 
All was tinted in rose. It looked a little dubious that 
the organizer of the Rebellion, Rizal the Younger, 
had disappeared, but no importance was attached to 
what he might undertake to avenge bis father and 
revive the extinguished flame. At Christmas, 1897, 
the rebel leaders, Aguinaldo at the head, were to 
sign the definitive treaty at Lingayen whither they 
were being conducted by the soldiery, whom the 
terms of peace showed up, said the Government, 
''in perfect honor \" 



i06 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

This peace with the Filipinos was to leave Spain 
to devote all means and men to subduing Cuba. 

A mere handful of rebels, mainly deserters, it was 
admitted, remained up in the inaccessible mountains, 
probably commanded by Rizal. 

He, for one, would be an Irreconcilable because 
of his talented father being done to death. 

This Dr. Jose Rizal, it was now acknowledged, 
was a loss to the Eastern country. He was of nearly 
pure Castilian stock, handsome, gentlemanly, scien- 
tific, linguistic, poetical and romantic. He had 
written novels in English as well as his native 
Spanish, which latter were being read in Spain, with 
too late regret that he had been shot in October, 
189G, as a rebel. 

The military, seeing that this Filipino martyr was 
so deplored, hastened to wash their hands of it. 
Rivera intimated, like Pilate, that he was only obey- 
ing Caiaphas in dealing out death. 

This was the only discord in the notes of rejoicing. 

But that handful of rebels up in the mountains 
had become quite an army now investing Manila, 
and the Parliamentary Opposition talked of inquir- 
ing into the whole management of the Philip- 
pines ! 

The Queen had been dissuaded from abdicating. 
In addition, she and the Old Party had been per- 
suaded to listen to reason, and to reason with the 
Americans about a giving up of all the haughty 
traditions of the shattered country, without a navy 
worthy of the name ! 

Every man would be wanted to defend the throne 
if the Americans were let continue their career. 

It was the deadly and irrepressible foe of monarchy 
that was marching under the Stars and Stripes. As 
our President well said : 

'^From Plymouth Rock to the Philippines, the 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 10/ 

grand triumphant march of Human Liberty has 
never paused !'' 

Once, Spain was a Republic — this must not 
occur again, said priest, noble and soldier. 

In a man, ^' the first treasure is Life," says Dumas ; 
in a realm it is the Crown. 

So Spain called upon France to save her from the 
extremity which loomed up horribly. 

Towards the end of July, while Dewey was 
sharpening his sword for a finishing stroke, the 
French Minister in Washington imparted the desire 
of Spain to learn on what conditions she might hope 
to be at peace. The answer was speedy and suc- 
cinct. Without going into detail, particularly as 
regarded uionetary matters like indemnities,^ Cuba 
was to be handed over with utter renunciation of 
sovereignty, and it was to be immediately evacuated 
by the Sptinish soldiery ; Porto Rico and all the re- 
mainder of the Spanish West Indian possessions were 
to be ceded to the United States and evacuated by 
the military powers ; Guam in the Ladrones was to 
be similarly set aside for the conquerors. As for the 
Philippines, the United States were to retain all of 
Manila and its vicinity which it held, while tlie treaty 
of peace was to define the manner of disposing that 
colony hereafter. 

Not a word was breathed about the destruction of 
the Maine, the root from which sprang all the blood- 
shed and ruin to the diminished kingdom. 

These preliminaries were not kept from our press, 
and such publicity clashing with the secret diplo- 
matic methods of Europe and especially of Spain, 
she took offense at it, but that was of no consequence. 
It was submit or perish. 

She stood alone ; her bondholders wanted some 
substance snatched out of the wreck to appease 
them. Germany dared no longer thrust out an itch- 



I08 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

ing paw towards the prize escaping surely from her 
covetous eyes ; a little hope that, in case of war, her 
subjects in America would return to her allegiance 
vanished, for the German-Americans, in numerous 
meetings, affirmed their adopted country of their 
steadfast allegiance, as proven in the Civil War, its 
records adorned by such names as Rosencrantz, as 
the Revolutionary one was by' Steuben and Pulaski. 

On the instant that Spain accepted the conditions, 
suspension of hostilities Avas telegraphed to our com- 
manders all over the world. 

This calling off the dogs of war came in time to 
stop a battle in Porto Rico, but, though despatched 
to the Pacific on the 12th of August, did not reach 
there until the 16th. 

Napoleon the Great has said that a battle can be 
won in a quarter of an hour. 

Admiral Dewey has shown that one can be fought 
and won in the short space of a treaty of peace being 
signed and countersigned. 

On the loth of August, a division of the fleet 
opened on Malate, and the southern side of Manila, 
shelling the works and covering our trenches through 
which our soldiers advanced and, emerging, leaped 
into the enemy's outworks and stormed them. Eleven 
thousand prisoners formed the harvest of the day. 
None of the vessels and none of their crew received 
injuries. 

General Merritt's men kept the foe on the retreat 
until they were huddled within the old city walls, 
where, under the guns of the fleet, resistance was 
hopeless. 

Our loss among the land forces, some of whose 
fighting was at close quarters, was thirteen killed 
and forty-seven wounded. 

General Jaudaiies at last submitted to the inevi- 
table, not trying to adjourn it until " the manana," 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEV. IO9 

or waiting in the stereotyped way for confirmation 
from Madrid. The Central Government was worth 
nothing when the Yankees pushed them, literally, to 
the wall. Our victorious forces carried their com- 
mander-in-chief into the Viceroy's palace where the 
officers came to lay down their arms. 

After the precedent of a Northern soldier raising 
the flag over surrendered Santiago, setting the seal 
on our conquest of Cuba, to a Southern hand. Lieu- 
tenant J3rumby's, of Georgia, was chosen to hoist it 
to envelop in its folds the highest mast of Manila. It 
was a sublimely emphatic token how the " Blue and 
the Gray march under one flag — we have but the one 
flag now !~the same that our grandfathers lifted up." 

The treaty of peace could come now — peace was, 
in fact, concluded. 

All was delight around the beaten ones ; the in- 
surgents expected that all their hopes and wishes, so 
long and drearily cherished, would be realized. 
These hopes were shortly dashed to earth. For, a 
day or two later, came the President's terrible deci- 
sion on a most urgent point : 

'' Permit no joint occupation with the Insurgents." 

This was publicly proclaimed to the people by 
order of General Merritt. All the assertions and 
promises of the agitators were uprooted by this de- 
cree ; after this, it was clear that the Americans had 
the upper hand and meant to keep it high. 

Still, whatever the disapj^ointment, there was no 
enmity created of a sudden. On the other hand, on 
the 24th August, tliere was a conference between the 
Insurrectionists and our chiefs, with the declaration 
from the former that they were still willing to co- 
operate with their brothers-in-arms, and that thev 
would surrender their arms — OAved in part to them-^ 
if they were assured of protection. 

Certain that this was a true submission, General 



no THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Merritt left the captured city to respond to the call 
for him to attend the Peace Conference at Paris. 

During August, the peace treaty had been drawn 
up, discussed, edited and put into permanent shape. 
The protocol had been duly approved and signed 
by both parties, and they had selected the distin- 
guished gentlemen to represent them at the Congress. 

The American soldiers and sailors waited on their 
arms and by their guns in the two hemispheres, re- 
gretful for the most part that their work seemed 
utterly concluded. 

" There is many a slip "—of the dogs of war. 

Havoc was again to be let loose, at least in the 
Orient. 



CHAPTER XL 

REFORMS STARTLE THE N"ATIVES. — DOUBT AN"D DIS- 
BELIEF. — DEWEY REPLIES TO IMPERTINEISTCE, 
AND TO NATIVE IMPUDENCE. — THE OUTBREAK OF 
A FRESH WAR. 

As we had determined, none too soon, to take the 
Philippines in hand, whether it was to be ruled as a 
colony or a territory, a Commission was appointed 
to make the people understand that our military and 
naval operations had been wholly directed against 
their expelled foe and tyrant, the Spaniard. 

The Commission held the first meeting at Manila, 
in March, and issued an explanatory and reassuring 
proclamation on the 4th of April, 1899. 

To an ignorant and uninstructed population of 
whom only a paltry selection were not satisfied with 
daily bread and an occasional /es^«, the new promises 
were incomprehensible or incredible. 

They included wonderful words : Good Will, Hon- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. Ill 

est Civil Service, Free Schools, encouragement of 
Industry, lessening of taxes and their application to 
maintaining the government and serving public 
ends ; and so on. 

The supremacy of the United States was set forth 
as primary and unalterable ; hence, the natives had 
only exchanged one set of rulers for another, with 
the new ones untried, except that, in martial power, 
they were superior to the banished Spanish. 

Self-government was to come, as far as agreed 
with American views — just what the removed func- 
tionaries had always sung in Spanish. 

Civil rights were guaranteed ; and, yet, the mili- 
tary lorded over them ; merely a change in the uni- 
form ; the sword was still bared. 

^' Equality before the law." This was out of pos- 
sible belief. It seemed to the merchants of Manila 
that, still as before, relatives or familiars of the 
principal officers obtained passes for merchandise 
and carried on a coasting trade in the teeth of the 
blockaders, which resembled to a nicety all that pre- 
viously went on under the Eed-and-yellow. 

It is true the old cnrfew law had fallen into disuse, 
the one which allowed no music even in a private 
house unless by special permission, to be paid for — 
but the provost-marshars edicts wore a similar air. 

The Civil Service was to include the natives ! that 
was so, on the face of it, in other days ; only, no one 
was esteemed fit for it ; " as far as practicable," is a 
phrase which it is difficult to surmount under such 
circumstances. 

All taxes were to support the local and national 
government and provide for public improvements. 
Good ! A while before, of the annual budget of 180 
million pesetas, two-thirds went to the Established 
Church, while the rest was taken by the Govern- 
ment, with nothing ever showing for it. 



112 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Certainly, it had not gone for national defense, 
since the enemy had found antiquated guns and 
crumbling walls ; not for roads, since they were 
" corduroy," in bamboo ; not for bridges, bamboo 
again, and mended by every one who came to cross 
the torrents ; not for public edifices, for — excepting 
the churches, creditable in any part of the world, 
and the Spanish authorities' palaces — town-halls, 
theaters, savings banks, insurance offices, these were 
nil. Taxes were eventually to be reduced — it was 
time to trim the poll-tax especially, as it bore on the 
day-laborer at a wage of five cents a day ! 

Local trade was to be furthered. It would have to 
be created, in a country where farm produce and 
garden-truck was forbidden to be sold ; it should be 
bartered only, while a tax in kind was exacted, this 
cess being sold /o/' cash in the market-place by the 
tithe-gatherers ! 

Public schools were announced, after the Ameri- 
can mode, of which the Filipinos cannot conceive a 
faint notion. All primary education is under the ec- 
clesiastics, confined to the catechism and the calendar 
of saints ; there are no normal or high schools ; as the 
rich and mercantile classes have private tutors, and 
the richest send their children to Europe. The 
children go to school for an hour during two days of 
the week, since they must learn to work ; no writing 
at all is taught to them. As there is no currency in 
tlie rural districts, to teach arithmetic were futile. 

^^Eeligious freedom is assured. "" There is no 
diversity of creed. There was a fierce outbreak be- 
cause a marriage was performed by the chaplain, 
among Protestants, at the British Consulate ! The 
islanders are excited against us because it was her- 
alded that we came to burn and plunder the churches 
and convents — the very buildings which the Spanish 
converted into forts from which to impede our ad- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. II3 

vance. And still more humorous, it is ^^ Aguinaldo 
and his crew " who stipulated in their Declaration of 
Independence that the members of religious orders 
should quit their islands and their property should 
be confiscated to the public good. Exactly the act 
of the Spanish Republicans when they temporarily 
held power, at Madrid. 

It is true that the Revolutionists were able to 
point to the error in the Archbishop of Manila's fore- 
sight when he assured the Spaniard that he was in- 
vincible and that Dewey's guns would never force 
him out of the Philippines. 

Perhaps, though, what impelled many a waverer 
into the opposite ranks was a rumor that we, with 
our cold, Anglo-Saxon morality, came to curtail the 
national sports and pastimes : cock-figliting, the vice 
of the Archipelago ; bull-fighting, the Spanish pet 
diversion, and the Colonial Lottery, a parody of that 
which battened on Cuba ; in this, the prizes range 
from $500 to $80,000 with portions to accom- 
modate the slenderest purse ; the montlily drawings 
were presided over by dignitaries of the State, 
military and Church, to ''see fair \'- 

It turned over $200,000 annually to Church and 
State, and morally ruined the people. 

The main part of our inducements to accept the 
new yoke was not understood, and the rest was not 
believed. 

It follows that Aguinaldo, young as he was — only 
thirty, but in the tropics this is accounted the 
prime — took to the field not only with as strong an 
army as ever he commanded, but with more secret 
adherents in the towns than ever before. 

While, in August, the Dewey Fleet was battering 
Malate fortifications and our troops forcing their 
way into the capital, the insurgents, though in- 
formed that they were not wanted (while utterly 
8 



114 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

ignored as to the military movements in which they 
had thought to cooperate) endeavored to make an 
entry also. Everywhere repulsed, and at the butt 
of the rifle, they had finally to be forced out, though 
they were only following up the Spanish whom they 
had kept on the run out of the country into the 
town. 

After the surrender, they were officially requested 
to quit the municipal limits. 

They assembled at Malabon, and issued a protest 
on their treatment, from the re-established Patriotic 
Congress. 

They accused us of bad faith; declared that we 
had profited by their beating the Spanish to_ strike 
the final blow, and appealed to all our authorities to 
say if they had not graciously acceded to every re- 
quest put to them to further the liberation of their 
fatherland. 

Their forces were augmenting, but under eyes 
which had a great contempt for them, as the Anglo- 
Saxon entertains for those of another color. The 
newly-landed Western volunteers classed them 
with the other ''yellow-bellies," that is, ''Japs," 
"Chinee," Malays, and "the riff-raff" of the 
Asiatic seas. 

While this storm-cloud was thickening on our 
front. Admiral Dewey was perplexed by the details 
which swarmed upon his administration of the thou- 
sand affairs of the port. Knowing that his desired 
relief was at hand, he was putting things in order, 
like the faithful steward ; some of the anxiety about 
reinforcements was removed, but they came in so 
draggingly. 

If only on the instant that news of his destruction 
of the Spanish Asiatic squadron reached Wash- 
ington, the national mind had been made up there 
that the Philippines were to be ours eternally, and 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. II5 

all the regular soldiers ou foot had been shipped out 
of the Golden Gate, perhaps the Filipinos would 
not have dared to raise their standard against their 
deliverers. 

None seemed to have a clear sense of his situa- 
tion, needs and diurnal plagues. 

One day, somebody, in a bureau at the Capital, 
cabled him to know what he was collecting so much 
coal for at Manila. This was at a nick when he 
might have had to battle for the prize with an Euro- 
pean power. 

Prolix was the inquiry in spite of the cost ; terse 
and economical was the reply : 

'' To burn ! " 

Then the natives, eager to profit by the inter- 
regnum, were assiduous in testing the mettle of the 
new rulers and all to improve their peddling coast 
trade. 

Smuggling was going on ; even an American did 
not shrink from playing the traitor, in masking his 
ship under a false name and supplying the rebels 
with arms which would surely, to the informed, be 
used speedily against us. 

Suavity no longer concealed the '^ strength in the 
right." 

A visitor to the Islands, at this time, tells an 
amusing anecdote of the new Governor's mode of 
dealing with the natives, who, cringing and obse- 
quious to their late tyrants, believed that in the 
unassuming, reserved and tranquil Americans, they 
had found the opposite type. 

Like many an Eastern port, Cavite has no dock- 
age facilities. Goods are transferred from the ships 
to the warehouses by means of surf-boats known as 
^^ cascoes." These are owned by separate boatmen 
or held in flotillas by contractors. One of these 
made an arrangement with Admiral-Governor Dewey 



Il6 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

to carry mercliandise and comestibles for the ships 
to his vessel, among others. When he liad finished 
his job, he determined to present his bill, which was 
in his eyes a considerable amount, to the represent- 
ative of Uncle Sam, in person. 

To do the more honor to his illustrious creditor, 
he arrayed himself in the court dress of the Orien- 
tals, namely, an old-fashioned Parisian evening 
dress-suit, with enormous tie in the style of 1832, 
high Gladstonian collar, cuffs ^'^shot^' well outward 
over his brown paws, an embroidered white shirt ; 
and, literally above all, a gossamer silk stove-pipe 
hat. This had been the acme of all eyes in the 
Calle Real since two seasons. 

When he arrived beside the flag-ship and was 
shown into the cabin, he was rather the more proud 
in his new feathers by being confronted by the ad- 
miral at his table, chid in the very simple undress 
of light apparel proper to the infernal heat and his 
present occupation of dealing with the business 
matters of the fleet. 

Besides, the naval authority's manners were cool 
and unpretending as his attire, in spite of the reek 
of the powder with which Montejo had been anni- 
hilated still pervading the atmosphere. 

The consequence was, that, on the errors in the 
bill, all to the lighterman's advantage, naturally 
being pointed out, he just had sense enough to see 
that he must not presume, as was the old method, 
to explain that the overcharges helped bribe the 
auditor, and so he protested, more and more hotly, 
that he was correct. 

The reply was that tlie bill would be paid accord- 
ing to the original agreement without a cent more 
for the after-thoughts. 

Now this was uttered in so mild a mani\er that 
the Filipino became more arrogant — inspired by 



n, 




EMILIO AGUINALDO. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. Ii;^ 

the high hat and high collar, and insisted upon pay- 
ment, or he would show up Uncle Samuel as a 
delinquent. 

With a wave of his hand, the admiral put an end 
to the discussion, observing to his orderly, 

" Drop that man overboard I " 

The orderly passed the command to the watch on 
deck, and when the contractor arrived there, assisted 
in his upward flight by the marine on guard, the 
sailors plumped him into the unsavory waters of the 
harbor. His splendid beaver floated out to the sea, 
while he, a swimmer as all are of the coast islanders, 
regained his boat amid the merriment of even his 
own people who had not applauded, though they had 
envied the masquerader in foreign frippery. 

But other tlian laughing matters were impending, 
for army and the fleet. 

The scouts reported that the Insurrectionists, 
without any active demonstration, were drilling dili- 
gently and calling in all the idlers to be armed at 
their camp. Calm observers reckoned that the 
Aguinaldoists numbered at least ten thousand men 
in the swamps and jungles of Luzon. 

No Americans cared to go out among them ; not 
even the reckless bearer of the camera venturing his 
precious films within their lines. Now and then, 
they fired guns in rejoicing ; they had cannon of 
large caliber ; many were well-clothed, in the ^' loot " 
from Cavite and other places unprotected since the 
withdrawal of the former conquerors and the new 
ones keeping to their capture. War-drums and war- 
fifes were heard as if some of the irreclaimable 
savages from the outer islands had swelled the 
ranks ; in spite of the rebels^ contumacy about the 
State Religion, mass was said over the companies 
going on guard-mounting. 

These locusts began to eat up the land, and Manila 



Il8 THE LIFfi ANt) CAREER 

had a fear of famine if it had to feed both these 
hosts, one in its doors, the other just without them. 

Nevertheless, it was not for the deliverers and 
would-be regenerators to fire the first shot in this 
new and still more painful conflict. 

The revolt against the Americans broke out in 
February. 

On Saturday night, the 4th, three or four natives 
sauntered up and made as if to pass by the pickets 
of the American volunteers at Santa Mesa, a purlieu 
of the capital. They were challenged, but either 
not understanding or not insisting, went away with- 
out any words. But they tried again and again at 
other points ; until, at the third trial, their pertina- 
city incensed a corporal of the Nebraskas ; his chal- 
lenge being unheeded, he fired and shot two. One 
expired and the other was fatally injured. 

The blood-feud familiar to the Filipinos was thus 
inaugurated, if not a war started. 

To the north of Manila lies Caloocan, near the 
bay shore, and thence, to the rear of the city, ex- 
tended the insurgents' line, to Santa Mesa. At the 
echo of these two shots, others broke outstragglingly 
all along this line, but all directed against the 
volunteers. 

Besides the Nebraska sentries, those of South 
Dakota and Montana immediately responded, and the 
firing became hot in the dusk. No one yielded ; 
but soon came up reinforcements. So far it seemed 
what military men call " an affair of outposts. '^ Few 
imagined that it signified the commencement of a 
war. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 119 



CHAPTER XII. 

A SKIRMISH A:N'D A VERITABLE BATTLE. — ROUTIiq"G 
OUT GUERRILLAS. — PUKSTON's FAMOUS AFFAIR.— 
THE DASH ACROSS THE RIVER. — DESERTERS FOR 
HONOR !— '^ WE WOK't GO HOME ! ''—A TRAITOR 
OF OUR BLOOD. 

In-deed, there was nothing much done but the 
firing of desultory shots up to nine o'clock, when, 
entirely unanticipated, with the dash of prairie 
Indians, the Filipinos sprang out of the canebrake 
at a hundred gaps, flitted over the savannah (prairie) 
like phantoms and hurled themselves on tlie sentinels. 
The abruptness almost carried them through here 
and there, only to meet comrades coming up at the 
cry of ^aiere they are, boys!'' The charge had 
been heard and understood at the rear, for the shaken 
out-guard was promptly reinforced. Overhead, the 
artillery joined in, to drive the audacious assailants 
back into their lairs. 

Hepulsed, but apparently still bold, the insurgents 
fell back, but only to gather at three points, whence 
the firing was handsomely maintained for irregulars. 

This was the cue for Dewey's ships, running up 
the channel as close in as their draft allowed, to 
open shell- fire on the three consolidations, namely, 
Caloocan, Santa Mesa, and Gagalangin. The firing 
on all parts was kept up until early in the morning. 

Many of the shells fell into the ''high grass of the 
marshes and were smothered at exploding ; " The 
dirty beggars," said a volunteer, '^are getting a 
mud-bath ! " 



120 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

111 the early hours, Colonel Diiboce and the First 
Calif ornian Volunteers made a diversion against 
Paco, a suburb to the west of the town, where the 
insurgents had fortified the church as a fastness, and 
repelled the first assault ; but a second was more 
successful, the Americans clearing the sanctuary of 
the desecrators and pursuing them with the bayonet 
at the loins, while the edifice burned behind them, 
fired by a dropped cartridge. Some twenty of the 
fugitives were killed and more than twice that 
number taken prisoners. 

Nobody doubted now that the followers of Agui- 
naldo had cast off the mask and meant to do battle 
with us as strenuously as they had with the vanished 
oppressors. The cry of ^^ Down with the Yankee 
hogs !" joined that "' Death to the tyrants !" used 
to cover the ex-conquerors. 

On the 25th of March, a true battle was waged ii 
order to break the backbone of this ominous dis- 
content. 

There were as many as twelve thousand men in 
array on either side. 

If you sail to the north, along the bay from 
Manila, you come to an inlet known as Malabon 
Eiver. Entering a lagoon, Malabon and Caloocan 
will be found due east on the farther shore. The 
center of the United States forces was here con- 
fronted by the enemy with its center at Novaliches, 
northeastwardly. We had five regiments of infantry 
representing the Army ; the Utah Artillery and 
three other batteries ; while the volunteers hailed 
from Wyoming, Nebraska, which had had its " bap- 
tism of fire," South Dakota, Oregon and Minnesota, 
with Pennsylvania to stand for the East ; the Colo- 
rado boys were present. Those who had made a 
laugh course through Manila, even while the cannon 
boomed and the smoke stifled, from the jaunty step 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 121 

with which they pursued the Spanish into cover, to 
the tune of " There will be a Hot Time in the Old 
Town To-night ! " It was like the Irish Brigade, 
under General Picton, bursting upon the French at 
Waterloo to the dancing air of " The Young May 
Moon is Beaming ! " 

The regiments were about 800 strong. 

General Hale commanded the fronting brigade ; 
supported by those of Harrison, Hall, Gray and 
Otis, while Lloyd Wheaton's sheltered the rear. 

Tlie point of attack was Polo, easterly of Malabon, 
whence the American left extended. The plan was 
to enmesh the foes between the Bay, where they had 
no means of embarking, as our gunboats and those 
captured from the Spanish, added to our service, 
had pretty well wiped out even the long, narrow 
skiffs with outriggers. 

The march began at dawm, on account of the 
coolness, though the swamp air is favorable to ague. 

Two brigades, H. G. Otis' — not the general com- 
manding, later, in-chief — and Hale's, nimbly vacated 
the trenches, and reached the enemy's position un- 
observed. Their places were taken by Hall and 
Wheaton, '' keeping touch." 

At four o'clock, a halt was made for breakfast. 

It was so chilly in the sea-shore air that fires w^ere 
lighted to fortify the men with a drop of hot drink ; 
the fuel was not too dry, and as they were watched 
for by a foe experienced in bush-fighting, the smoke 
was soon espied. All idea of a surprise was soon 
dissipated, for trumpets were heard ahead, in the 
European style, the rebels having borrowed the 
Spanish clarions along with loot taken out of Old 
Cavite and other captured or abandoned positions. 

As discovery was published, the advance was re- 
sumed, and most rapidly, over a mile of rugged, low- 
land, level country. 



122 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

111 the sandy soil, the insurgents had easily dug 
ditches three or four feet deep, banked with sod of 
the long eel-grass, with improvised ahattis of the 
underbrush, cut with cane-knives and saber-bayonets. 

The charge was made by the volunteers, yelling 
like collegians at football, at the double-quick. The 
modern and American style was in vogue, familiar to 
@ur Indian fighters — ^^ Charge by rushes." The 
men advance and fire, drop, eject the cartridge and 
get the next ready, rise, advance, and fire ; and so 
on until the hand-to-hand encounter may begin. 

This had the same effect as in Cuba, where it 
puzzled the European military officers, sent to dis- 
cover how we fought in " little wars/' 

The cheers and the firing brought no shots from 
the natives, singularly well in hand. It is known 
that they were ordered to spare their ammunition, 
which was scarce. At a thousand yards, they re- 
torted, and the firing was severe across the plain. 
Those who had marched beside them, previous to 
the taking of Manila, said that they aimed lower 
and, indeed, the dust was seen to be thrown up, so 
many bullets ricochetted. 

But the Americans continued their quickstep, 
still cheering, yelling facetiously as if it were in 
sport, and bearing down all opposition as at last 
they met. 

When within two hundred yards of the main body, 
the latter shook, broke and fled into the thicker 
woods. A few who stood were mowed down by 
the volleys. The way was encumbered by the 
fallen. 

The Montana Volunteers hastened up, with the 
Kansans, in time to complete the victory. 

AVhat was designated by the correspondents as 
" Colonel Funston's (of Kansas) Famous Affair " hap- 
pened on April 27th. The enemy had partly de- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 23 

stroyed one of those native swinging bridges made 
of cane, so that the colonel's men had to swim some 
thirty yards to get across. They were fully dressed 
and carried all their accoutrements. 

It was on the Rio Grande, near Calumpit, that 
another gallant action, to show how our soldiers can 
go through water as well as through fire, was per- 
formed. Two privates swam across the river in the 
face of the rebel trenches and fastened a rope to one 
of the engineers' guiding stakes by which the other 
soldiers were enabled to draw a raft over, carrying 
the stores and imjmlimenta. The regiment covered 
them all the while with so steady a fire that the 
Filipinos were unable to hinder the two devoted 
volunteers. 

The raft landed fifty, who held the shore until 
joined by their comrades, at whose advance the in- 
surgents chose to run into the wilderness. They 
were more than two thousand strong, and might have 
made the crossing more difhcult but that the daring 
deed and the imposing front daunted them. 

For some time the chronicle is of minor affairs : 
advances of the Americans and flights of the rebels, 
often without close firing, followed by the victors 
being unable for want of men to hold the positions 
conquered, which, when evacuated, were re-occupied 
by the fugitives. These Avere magnified into '* bat- 
tles " and accounted by the Filipinos as successes. 
In fact, to gain time was all they could hope, the 
policy of Aguinaldo being based on the chapter of 
accidents. 

Meanwhile, great impatience was shown by all 
concerned at the lack of celerity in the movements 
at home, expected to expedite the relief troops._ One 
of the strangest things ever known occurred in the 
Pacific : regular soldiers at Honolulu deserted in 
order to stow themselves aboard of the transports 



124 



THE LIFE AND CAREER 




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AN YGOROTE WARRIOR. SIX HUNDRED YGOROTBS, ARMED WITH SPEARS 
OR BOWS AND ARROWS, ATTACKED A BATTERY OF AMERICAN FIELD GUNS 
ptJRING THE FIGHTING BEFORE MANILA, 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 25 

sailing for the Philippines. They knew they were 
breaking the severe military code, but hoped, as they 
fled merely to report ''Ready for duty" in the face 
of the enemy, that they would be forgiven ! 

In another case, at Cuba, men whose time of serv- 
ice had expired and who were ready to embark to 
go to Tennessee — and sweet is the prospect of home 
to a veteran completing hard service under an un- 
congenial sun ! they held back from abandoning 
their comrades, knowing they wanted strengthening, 
and resolutely went on shore again to share the sleep 
in the dank trenches — perhaps, the sleejD which 
knows no waking till the Last Trump. 

Towards the close of August, the Revolutionary 
Government held an extraordinary session at Tarlac, 
with Aguinaldo merely the President ; a rumor gave 
out that he had constituted himself Dictator. His 
Cabinet was, on the whole, conservative : the 
speeches were not very incendiary. The main busi- 
ness was to procure money by some means becoming 
a government. It was decreed that all foreigners 
should be registered, and as all business of the native 
rule is transacted under stamps, here was one new 
supply created. 

This petty Congress replied to the American pro- 
posal of an autonomous government. They refused 
it with sovereignty of the alien on the grounds that 
the Americans could not be trusted. They had seen 
at the first that they did not like them — were even 
opposed to them, through race prejudice. Later, 
the high-handed proceedings of American officers 
had confirmed their ill opinion of us. 

All the officers returning from the scenes of blood- 
slied united in the opinion that the Aguinaldos, if 
not the whole population of our acquisition, were 
false, and ought to be whipped into a lasting sub- 
mission. 



126 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Nothing serious could be done in this direction 
until the Rainy Season should be over, and light 
infantry and cavalry could traverse a country pre- 
senting obstacles, but not more impracticable than 
those our cavalrymen had overcome in pursuing the 
Apaches in the Arid Region. 

In September it was proven before a court-martial 
that one American had let sordid gain, distract him 
from the proper course when his countrymen were 
in warfare. 

The investigation denounced one F. L. Plummer, 
an American resident at Manila, for chartering a 
steamer which proceeded on several mysterious 
voyages, not amicable to the acquirers of the island 
of Luzon. 

The steamship had been cleared regularly from 
Manila for Pasacao, with Mauricio Reyes as captain, 
and Plummer's agent, Ayala, on board. The captain 
was ordered not to lower the American flag, and to 
carry no troops of any kind. Ayala had the flag 
taken down after the steamship left Manila and dis- 
played the Filipino emblem on arrival at Pasacao, in 
the Carolines. 

At Nueva Caceras rifles were removed from the coal, 
and the steamship towed a schooner loaded with 200 
insurgent troops to the island of Catandunes. On 
another trip a revolutionary officer and his orderly 
were taken as passengers, no mention of their pres- 
ence appearing on the log. 

The steamship was seized. The board determined 
that the seizure was a lawful one, and General Otis 
advised the War Department that he had ordered the 
sale of the vessel at public auction. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 127 



CHAPTER XIIL 

OUR COMMISSION CALLED HOME. — EACH DAY AN 
EVEKT. — CATCHING A ''TARTAR." — PORAC AND 
BAKOR. — THE SIGNAL SERVICE. 

The Philippine Commission was recalled in Sep- 
tember ; it looking as if the iron hand would be used 
without any diplomatic glove. The troops of which 
the time was finished were returning also by every 
transport, but others were coming. The available 
force was being augmented, that was clear. 

In this same month, anew native police went upon 
duty in Manila ; as civilians, they carried clubs, but 
as semi-military, they had revolvers ; disorder was 
prevalent, as the places for drinking were increased in 
number for the reception of so many soldiers and 
sailors. The city wore a cosmopolitan appearance, 
our own newcomers becoming used to seeing the 
natives, the women smoking cigarettes, the priests 
and nuns, who left their hiding-places since the 
captors terrified their antagonists into silence and 
reserve ; and the Sulus and other '' pirates " from 
the outer islands. 

Lwgua franca began to be talked among the 
traders and the Americans, who were good custom- 
ers on getting their pay. 

Every day there was exciting news, the rebels con- 
tinuing active. A party, on shore by San Fernando, 
lured ashore, where she got fast, the coasting steamer 
Saturnus, belonging to the Compania Maritima. 
Thereupon, a masked battery of three-inch guns 
was opened on her and the crew and passengers 



128 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

made no resistance, although her cargo and a cash- 
box were known to be valuable. The insurgents 
hastened to remove the j^ersons in their way, but 
merely making them prisoners, as they were of their 
own race or friendly Spanish. To their joy, they 
found at the first search nearly $50,000 in cash, 
while the merchandise was desirable. They were 
soon transferring this to the shore in their cascoes. 
Dropping the anchors so that the steamer could not 
budge, they set fire to her before even they had com- 
pletely lightened her. 

The column of smoke unluckily attracted the at- 
tention of a Spanish gunboat captured and added to 
our navy. This cutter, the Pampanga, named from 
a locality in the bay, hastened to the spot and, as 
the water shoaled, put out a small boat to inquire 
into the supposed disaster. But on its approach the 
pirogues were seen still transi3orting the goods to 
the beach, and it was feared that murder waited on 
the wholesale robbery. The gunboat began firing on 
the battery in the sand and at the natives, who used 
Mausers and Remingtons in trenches on the sailors. 
It was soon ascertained that it was simple robbery 
and incendiary mischief ; for the crew and passengers 
were seen on the shore among their captors. 

Nothing could be done to free them, as the natives 
retired, and the hull was left to burn itself out. 

The taking of Calambon serves as a type of the 
encounters which enlivened a campaign without 
profit towards the general subjugation. 

Major-General Henry W. Lawton, of the Volunteer 
Army, had this movement in his hands. The place 
was seat of the insurgents' most important gathering. 

A light gunboat assisted in the advance of our 
thousand men comprising a squadron of the Fourth 
Cavalry. 

The U. S. gunboat cantured the Rebel Navy — that 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I29 

is, an armed tug, thougli the fugitive crew succeeded 
in stripping her of all light articles and carrying 
them ashore where they purposed standing off the 
assailants. Capt. M'Grath of the U. S. Cavalry 
commanded his men, and the company of infantry 
taking the van. To reach the town they had to 
cross a river too deej) to ford ; to set the example, 
he and Lieutenant Batson plunged in, like Horatius, 
fully armed, and crossed in order to bring back a 
boat seen over the way. The lieutenant nearly lost 
his life from his gaiters getting loose and fettering 
his movements, but as it was inshore, where his 
comrade stood on firm land, he was instantly helped 
to the same solid footing. Then the pair returned, 
pushing the scow, and the soldiers immediately fol- 
lowed and secured a lodgment. During the capture, 
Mrs. General Lawton was in a boat in the bay ; the 
sharpshooters on shore frequently hit the gunwale 
but no one was hurt. The general expressed satis- 
faction at the way the vanguard had acted, saying : 

''You of the cavalry did the whole thing ! " 

After the soldiers had crossed, the resistance was 
feeble. In the headquarters was found the engine- 
fittings and other brass and metal work out of the 
captured tugboat. The Americans' coming liberated 
a dozen Spanish prisoners, who embraced them in 
the street, to the amusement of the spectators, un- 
accustomed to these manifestations of joy in the 
Latin race. 

The retreating forces could not be followed with 
so few men to hold the town, as usual. 

A notable incident at Hong Kong evinced how 
nearly we were to international complications at any 
unexpected moment. 

The first intelligence of our transport, the Tartar, 
hired from English shipowners, being detained at 
that port, because she was in contravention of the 

9 



130 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

British mercantile regulations, caused a stir. It 
looked like a hostile manifestation from the Anti- 
American clique said to pervade that port and to be 
busy in slandering us in our new sphere of action. 

The Tartar flew the British ensign, so that the 
port authorities had full standing to inspect her, 
though she was carrying our invalided and dis- 
charged soldiers and seamen. 



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FILIPINO SOLDIERS. 



The complaint was that she was overcrowded with 
some four hundred passengers in excess among the 
fourteen hundred aboard. Also that there were not 
half enough boats, or the means to make life-saving 
contrivances, such as rafts, for the soldiers, to say 
nothing of the stock of life-preservers, which should 
have been supplied one to a head, being shamefully 
insufficient. As for the British flag, it was urged 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 131 

that an American transport, the Indiana, might 
have been chosen instead of the foreign one, at 
Manila, a hint being offered that there was corrup- 
tion somewhere. 

The Hong Kong port officers were so undeniably 
correct that their contention had to be yielded to, 
and while the United States officials debated the 
question of the overcrowding, the life-preservers 
demanded were forwarded and the other appliances 
supplied, so that the Tartar might resume her voyage. 

The side-issue from this revelation of bad manage- 
ment in the transport service was seen, shortly after, 
in an order under which all our seamen in the navy 
would have a life-preserver individually. 

Towards the end of September, some anxiety was 
felt at the silence of the Aguinaldos as regarded 
several of our men held as their prisoners. 

The light craft captured from the Spanish and 
turned over to our navy had been merrily named the 
'* tin-clads," but they did yeoman's service in the 
lagoons and estuaries where none of our deeper 
vessels could go. The Urdaneta, one of these, was 
captured by the insurgents with an officer and nine 
or ten of the crew, but regained later. 

On the 28th inst. Porac was taken by General Mac- 
Arthur, but evacuated the next day — '^ Want of men 
to hold it," again ! The fighting had been sharp, 
four non-commissioned officers being wounded. 

At the beginning of October, near Bakor (or, 
Bacoor), there was a '^ scrimmage," as a skirmish 
is facetiously called by '' the boys in blue," in which 
a first lieutenant and one of the signal corps. Cap- 
tain McKinney's, were wounded. It might seem odd 
that a telegraphist should be under fire, but this 
happens not infrequently at the present day. In 
former times, when intelligence was borne by 
mounted aids from the generals to the colonels, there 



132 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

were many of the prancing cavaliers familiar in paint- 
ings. But all this is changed. Instead of a gallant 
aide-de-camp restraining his mettlesome charger 
before the commander-in-chief, a man sits at his 
tripod-table, on which is the "^ ticker." At the 
other termination is a similar stand and instrument, 
ready to send oil despatches and receive them almost 
before the events related have dried on the joage of 
history. 

A military telegraphic operator thus vividly de- 
scribes the novel employment : 

^^ It^s a saying that, let a soldier cross a swamp or 
swim a river, the second man over is the signal serv- 
ice operator, sending back a report of how it was 
done. If there's an advance of half a mile by the 
firing line, the wire has been brought up and cut, 
the instrument attached and an oi)erator is seated 
at his little table sending desjiatches. 

^'^ The signal service men at the front work on 
the line within two hundred yards of the enemy 
sitting at the little table sending despatches, or 
receiving orders. Oh, they shoot at you all right 
enough. Often they get in beliind and cut the wires. 
Some have been shot while climbing the poles. The 
colonels and regimental officers are always right at 
the front, and brigade headquarters from one-half 
mile to one and a half miles in the rear. The opera- 
tives take turns at the front. 

*^ Nearly everything in the signal service is tele- 
graphy. Once in a great while the flags were used, 
but only where we couldn't use the wire. That 
wasn't often, for we waded through swamps up to 
the chest, dragging the wire after us. There's no 
dashing about of couriers and orderlies carrying 
orders, as there was in the Civil War. The telegraph 
does everything." 

A captain of this branch was killed on Negros. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 33 

Two attacks were made by the expelled insurgents 
on Calamba, although it was held by two companies 
of the 21st Infantry, but they were beaten off with 
a loss of sixty killed and many wounded ; our loss 
was two killed and seven wounded. An outpost of 
four Americans, at Guagua, had two of them killed 
by the bush-fighters. 

At the same time the gunboats were busy. The 
United States gunboat Urdaneta, of which we have 
related the capture, was recovered by a special rescu- 
ing expedition, frightening off the captures and find- 
ing that she could be refitted as good as new. There 
was no time given for the enemy to get her off-shore 
or to fire her. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CLEARING FOR THE ADVANCE. — DEFEAT AT NO- 
VALETA. — NAVY AND ARMY CLASH. — PLOTS AND 
COUNTERPLOTS. — DEWEY DEPARTING ! 

Captain Poore with the 6tli Infantry was scour- 
ing the country to repress the guerrillas and bring 
in arms, which were a sore temptation for the peas- 
ants to join the irregulars. 

He broke up one band, at Negros, with the loss of 
his lieutenant, but killed twenty, with two of the 
leaders, and gained a dozen excellent rifles. The 
insurgents not only reoccupied the places stormed 
but retired from, but seemed gathering to cut the 
Manila-Dagupan railroad, about at Mexico, a vil- 
lage. 

West of the Bakor and the Imus rivers, they 
harassed the American line of communication ; they 
retired before the regular cavalry which should have 
been increased a hundredfold to suppress these 



!34 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

raids, so wearying to onr sentinels and picket- 
guards. 

General Fred Grants with five companies of the 
regular foot regiments, proceeded to punish the in- 
truders on our limit at tlie Inus, and cleared away 
all molesters, at a cost of three wounded ; the others 
lost ten killed as they retreated over the west bank. 
The church at Binicaya was utilized as a fort, ac- 
cording to the sacrilegious usage of the Filipinos, 
but they were driven out. 

The 5th Artillery raced out of Bakor and shelled 
the west bank of the river, which remained clear to 
Americans. 

Over this Avay, on the 8th, marched a strong 
column under General Schwan, cavalry, artillery and 
regulars, to investigate the strength of the hostile 
position at Old Cavite and farther. 

The inhabitants were cowed, and hung out the 
white flag wherever it might save their cabins from 
a shot of the scouts. 

The rebels had a way of turning these huts into 
rifle-pits when they were too lazy to dig trenches. 

The naval vessels and marines at Cavite made a 
demonstration to divert the foe from this advance 
upon them, towards Old Cavite. 

Here there was a struggle for half an hour as the 
insurgents had entrenched themselves so strongly 
that it required the shot of Reilly's battery to dis- 
lodge them ; the foot soldiers then poured in upon 
them and the cavalry completed the rout. They did 
not stop in going through Novaleta, which was ut- 
terly deserted when the victors rushed up. 

Three gunboats shelled this town and Santa Cruz 
to enable the marines to proceed in supjDort. 

The enemy had entrenched the narrow road over a 
morass, and it was diflficult to march direct ; a flank 
movement carried the marines through the swamped 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 35 

rice fields and allowed tliem to force the foes out of 
cover. These destroyed a bridge and went to throw- 
up earthworks in the sand hills and palm scrub on 
the farther side of the creek dividing the peninsula 
from Cavite to Novaleta. 

Again the swamp and submerged fields were waded 
across and these improvised forts were carried, the 
garrison being astounded at so much persistence. 

Squads of the volunteers and regulars cleared the 
roadside of nests of sharpshooters, and finally united 
with the scouts who were beating the swamps be- 
yond. 

Eosario, a sea-coast town with considerable popu- 
lation, received the conquerors with white flags, if 
with little enthusiasm ; if any of the fugitives pre- 
tended to join in this reception, they had thrown 
away their guns and donned fresh clothes. Some of 
the fugitives were caught in the act of divesting 
themselves so as not to be considered guerrillas, and 
were made prisoners, though the French and other 
European soldiers, in such warfare, would have shot 
such offhand. 

A three-pounder was used as the field-gun m this 

advance. 

Cavalry Captain McGrath was badly wounded and 
Lieutenant Saffold of the 13th Infantry killed. The 
latter was a graduate of the Military Academy m 
the class of 1879. He was born in Selma, Ala., on 
September 1, 1856. He participated in the campaign 
against the Apache Indians in New Mexico and Ari- 
zona and took a creditable part in the campaign 
against Santiago. In April last he went to the 
Philippines. 

In whatever direction a reconnaissance turned, it 
ran up against a rebel force which at least exchanged 
shots and retreated while firing at a distance, the 
same tactics which had dispirited the Spaniards and 



136 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

caused them to rely more on '^ slugs " of gold than 
on leaden bullets. 

The American scouts were supplemented by a 
hundred Macabebe warriors, who did good service, 
although their homes were burned in one of the 
forays. 

Under cover of incessant shifting of positions, it 
was alleged that the insurgents under General Pio 
del Pilar, were concentrating to assist their friends 
still nearer Manila than the San Mateo Valley and 
San Francisco de Malabon. 

They were calculated to have from three to five 
thousand men, with large guns. 

But the latter place was entered by General Schwan 
without opposition. 

It was eight months since the Tagalos had been 
expelled from Manila as *^a disorganized mob,^' and 
yet it was not safe for an American to go four miles 
out. 

Indeed, on the afternoon of the 9th, in broad day, 
mark ! a body of the enemy appeared about the 
waterworks and at La Loma Church, where the 25th 
Infantry were camped. Luckily, they were en- 
trenched after the precautions of \\\h petite guerre, 
and the insurgents did not try to storm the post, but 
fired with long-range rifles, the balls falling among 
the tents. Before an hour, artillery had to be brought 
into play to induce them to retire. They avenged 
themselves by threatening to injure the railroad 
and telegraph, which kept up the strain on our 
guards. 

The Filipinos used artillery at Angeles, where an 
American was killed, but the shells were imperfect 
and fell without exploding. 

There was much disappointment among our friends 
and supporters at the capital, since this taking and 
retaking of towns might go on to an indefinite ex- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I37 

tent. Manuscript quips circulated, likening our 
Comraander-in-Ohief to General Boom, in the Opera, 
whose record does not include anything more bur- 
lesque than our capturing, evacuating and retaking 
a town six times ! 

Nor was it solely against the military authorities 
that ridicule and complaining went up. 

There was friction between the Admiral and Gen- 
eral Otis, the new Governor-General, as the latter 
pronounced the port closed, although without the 
help of the navy it would be but a closure on paper ; 
and more, tried to keep out smugglers with a fleet 
of steamers converted into cruisers by putting guns 
aboard, which, with a full charge, would probably 
send them to the bottom. 

Admiral Dewoy had perceived no value in the 
Archipelago, while certain that we would be amply in- 
demnified for our outlay and exertions by the reten- 
tion of Manila and its magnificent bay as a naval 
station. Without consultation with him, the Cab- 
inet had resolved to make the whole assemblage of 
islands and islets territory of the U. S. A., while the 
farther steps which brought on the estrangement of 
the natives and their rising against us under arms, 
were contrary to his purpose, principles and policy. 

But he is too patriotic not to pronounce that, once 
entered into the quarrel, we should fight it out 
quickly, if for no other reason, that quickness will 
prevent any foreign power interfering. 

As England goes to no end of sacrifices to ward 
off the alien hand that would shake her " pagoda 
tree,'' so we must keep our orchard of spice-trees to 
our own basket. 

Never hushed for long was the rumor that Euro- 
pean Powers, goaded on by traders in our new pos- 
Ressions, and these backed by the consular reports of 
the latent riches and dormant mineral harvests, would 



138 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

insert the thin edge of the wedge of intervention by 
protesting against a paper blockade. 

Kemember that no fault was found with that of 
Manila itself, where the navy was energetic and effi- 
cient ; it was the endeavor to guard the innumerable 
inlets where the insurrectionists obtained gratifica- 
tion of their simple needs. 

For this General Otis was solely responsible. 

The Manila merchants, with hereditary fear of 
speaking out, vaguely talked of favoritism without 
direct accusation. The majority was dissatisfied 
with the new regime. 

General Otis, in fact, was unpopular, even among 
his soldiers, since he had been harsh upon officers 
who had not perceived some petty pilfering going 
on (as was natural where morality is so lax), when 
we went charging through a captured town, where 
the fleeing Aguinaldos certainly had sympathizers, 
who would have given them the supplies for which 
they made us pay dear. 

While the Admiral and the Commander were at 
odds as regards a strict blockade, the insurgents con- 
tinued to receive all the goods for war and susten- 
ance which they could pay for, at the innumerable 
small ports of Luzon. 

This leave to carry on a profitable trade did not 
conciliate the native merchants, for it was bruited 
that they were lenient towards a conspiracy within 
the gates. It was said that the Filipinos would 
make a rush at the walls, after eluding the flimsy 
line of our outlying troops, and, at the same time, 
have the gates opened to them by confederates inside. 
These were believed to have hidden ample weapons 
for a rising which was to come off on the 15th of 
October. 

This precision in the announcement induced the 
new native police force to be overhauled : their offi- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 39 

cers under suspicion were kept in quarters, and our 
own controlling force was doubled in the watches. 

Nothing occurred beside the scare. 

As an exhibition of the wide duplicity reigning in 
the land, plots and counterplots were floating in 
the air. 

It was asserted that General Otis had received a 
message from the Filipino chief, Piodel Pilar, hover- 
ing about San Mateo, offering for a sum of money to 
abstain from attacking Manila ; for another and im- 
mense sum, to surrender his army after a mock 
battle, such as has been offered to explain the slight 
resistance of the Spanish at Malate before Manila 
was entered. He would, for another plum, assist in 
crushing the tail of the rebellion, to say nothing of 
turning over Aguinaldo and the rest of the com- 
pany. He must have quarreled with his President 
(this document being authentic), for he alluded to 
him in contemptuous words. 

The Filipinos declared that this was all false or 
written to deceive, as Pilar, instead of being a traitor, 
was aiming to rush into Manila, which he did not 
expect to occupy under the naval guns ; but he 
would make hostages of General Otis and the Arch- 
bishop of Manila, so as to bring the Americans to 

terms. 

At the same time, another plot was discussed at 

the cafes. 

Three Spaniards were said to be in the town, who 
were hiding from native vengeance. 

They were comrades in the Spanish army whom 
the insurrectionists had made prisoners but liber- 
ated on condition of their joining their standards. 
In this capacity, from their knowledge of field ar- 
tillery, they, with others of their kind, had had the 
management of the guns in the fighting around Santa 
Rosa. 



140 



THE LIFE AND CAREER 



The shooting had been finer than the natives 
showed and this accounted for it. 

These precious gunners, or drawers of the long 
bow, wanted to sell out, with their pieces, to the 
oppressor, which discovering, the enraged Filipinos 
fell on them and killed all but three, who fled to the 
town. 

This discovery was made as follows: The traitors 
delegated one of the party to go to town and " trade " 




FILIPINO WOMEN IN CHARACTERISTIC COSTXTMES. 

with the American general, who, unless he were 
very unlike the Spanish commanders, would greet 
him with glee and hurry to chime in with his excel- 
lent idea. 

The Americans were to advance and surround the 
battery, upwards of twelve new pieces, Krupps and 
Nordenfeldt rapid-firers, together with ammunition 
in quantity, made at Lipa. These were to fire blank 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I4I 

cartridges so that they might be run up to and seized. 
The traitors were to receive a certain sum and free 
trans2:)ortation to Spain, as they dreaded the natives^ 
revenge if they stayed. 

Unfortunately, the envoy took three natives into 
his coniidence to a certain degree, as he was unable 
to cross the debatable territory and reach Manila 
without guides. These brought him safely to Ca- 
lamba, within the American lines, but were in turn 
timid about proceeding farther. The delegate there- 
fore went on alone into Manila, where he had diffi- 
culty in procuring the interview with General Otis. 

In the meantime, the natives suspected double- 
dealing from his delay and returned to Santa Kosa, 
where the plot was revealed. Seven of the turn- 
coats fell under the Filipinos' knives, and two 
escaped only to wander about the swamps until they 
found a skiff in which they ventured on the lagoon. 
Happily, the United States gunboat Napidan, pa- 
troling the coast, espied the boat and picked the 
inmates up. 

Brought before the American governor, he heard 
the tale, declined to have anything to do with the 
three survivors, who, indeed, could hardly go back to 
their cannon, but promised to return them to their 
own country. 

As Tarlac was understood to be the headquarters of 
the Insurrectos, with General Aguinaldo command- 
ing, it was imperative to project our forces towards 
that point. Between was the vanguard under General 
del Pilar. Leaving San Miguel in the mid-October, 
he pushed his men to occupy San Isidro and San 
Fernando. Hearing that the Americans were ap- 
proaching, on the 18th, he had the bridge at the 
latter place destroyed. But the prime attack of 
General Young, commanding the forefront of Gen- 
eral Law ton's forces, was upon San Isidro, With 



142 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

one killed and a few wounded, the assailants overrun 
the town where the inhabitants assumed friendliness. 
A heavier resistance was encountered at Fernando, 
with losses to the Aguinaldos not known, but fifteen 
were captured. 

Thus San Isidro became a base for the contem- 
plated finish at the seat of the Insurgent Congress. 

The country between Angeles and Arayat was 
avoided by travelers from its being infested by 
brigands ; they had been annoying our outposts, 
also Captains Macrae and Chyneworth, witli bat- 
talions of the 3d and 17tli Infantry, respectively, 
dispersed them, five hundred strong, before the 
village of Jose Malinas, and kept them in flight to- 
wards Magalang. This swept that tract clear. 

The insurgents tried to effect an exchange of 
prisoners, one of those expedients to make their 
cause look more substantial of which there were 
many instances. This kind of recognition was 
intended to serve the rebels who pro^iosed making 
an appeal to Europe through members of tlicir Junta. 
Kegidor, Agoncillo and Apacible were mentioned 
as likely to form part of the Delegation to try to 
have an audience at Washington. 

The Southern Insurgents entrenched themselves 
again before Calamba and attacked it, but were 
routed out and pursued several miles by General 
Kline. The 36th Volunteers repulsed the bands at 
Santa Rita with a loss to them of some twenty killed 
and wounded. Regulars or Volunteers, it was clear 
that the enemy could not stand up against us in the 
open ; besides, our men were becoming adepts at 
ambushes and bnsh-'^ whacking " generally. 

Our soldiers began to com23lain at the mode of 
discharge : If they were '^ turned loose " at Manila, 
some wanted their return travel-money given them 
there, so that they might engage in business, but 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I43 

this was not heard favorably ; they were usually so 
discharged that they had to lose a month's allowance. 

In sum, all these grievances, the loss of time and 
men, the lack of substantial gain to our supremacy, 
formed the base for a cry of recall for the military 
commander. 

''Dewey gone, it will be chaos/* said the opti- 
mistic themselves. 

And Dewey was going ! 



CHAPTER XV. 

GOOD-BY TO MAN^ILA. — INTERN ATION"AL HOMAGE. 
— HONG KONG. — THE '' YORKTOWN'S " CREW. — 
CALLING DOWN A PORT-CAPTAIN. — A STORY OF 
*'THE GIB." — DEWEY AS A REEFER. 

'' Homeward bound ! " the sweetest phrase in time 
of peace to a seaman. 

That was the direction of the prow of the good 
ship Olympia, with the wearied Admiral aboard, as 
she steamed at last out of Manila, past the ships of 
all nations — prominent among which was the U. S. S. 
Oregon, famous for all time among navigators for 
having twice rounded the Horn — a feat which was 
considered not to be attempted by a modern armored 
line-of-battle ship. 

But there she lay in Manila Harbor, and between 
her and the departing compeer arose the noisiest of 
the farewell greetings. 

Around them both, along that coast, comprising a 
hundred miles of inland sea, fluttered, from every 
point of elevation, the flag which was hardly known 
there five years before : the ''thing of beauty which 



144 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

is never raised anywhere for oppression, but carries 
in its folds Education and Civilization." 

Smoke rose from a thousand cannon mouths, and 
from the steam-whistles of a fleet of steam launches 
and petty craft ascended shouts in English and broken 
ditto : 

'' Good-by, Dewey ! " '' Pleasant voyage ! '' 
^' Long life to the Admiral ! " 

The bands of the Baltimore, and other men-of- 
war played appropriate airs as *^ Home, Sweet 
Home ! " " On tlie Banks of the Wabash ! " '' Lave 
us a lock o' yer hair I " '' FareweU to Erin." 

The merchant vessels dipped their colors, a kalei- 
dioscopical display ; handkerchiefs were waved by 
the senoritas, while their cavaliers lifted their hats on 
top of bamboos, and the common folk in the fisher 
craft cheered with " Vivas ! " 

The farthest out of the battle-ships was H. B. M.'s 
Powerful. 

''Her Britannic Majesty" had become something 
more to American eyes since her ships had ranged 
themselves beside ours in Manila Harbor with unveiled 
intent to fire shot for shot with our guns against any 
Power which presumed to break Dewey's blockade, 
and show that it was only ^' paper." 

Everybody knew that England's \' smartest " 
minister. Chamberlain, had, in May, hailed the idea 
of an Anglo-American Alliance, and never was a 
Queen Victoria's Birthday celebrated so rapturously 
under the American sun as her last one in the same 
month in our Eastern cities. 

One of her admirals. Brand, had complimented 
his brother of " the Four Stars" with these 
words : 

'^ ' Manila Bay ' is one of the most brilliant vic- 
tories in the naval history of the world." 

The Poiverful saluted the passing ship with its 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I45 

band playing " God Save the Queen/' which, from 
the similarity of the music, most accepted as '^ My 
Country, 'Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty ! " 

Besides, the British mariners raised one of those 
cheers never heard on foreign decks, and Dewey's 
own men responded with not only cheers but a truly 
national " Tiger-r-r !" 

If any voice was missing in this chorus, it was that 
of the Kaiser-land. The Germans were not reinstated 
in good odor, although apologies had been made for 
their rudeness. The Admiral's last words to the 
general taking command of the land forces had 
been : 

" The Germans behaved very nastily. If those 
vessels had been here (indicating the two monitors, 
moored, one at each end of the town), and they had 
remonstrated against my bombarding that town to 
fire out the Tagalos, I should have replied : ^I will 
sink you first ! and then bombard the city ! '" 

The last of the goodspeeds came from tlie brazen 
and steel lips of the forts at Cavite, where the 
'^ Blood-and-golden banner" had been pulled off 
never to appear again ; and from i\\Q Monad nock and 
Monterey, the iron-clad harbor-defenders to which 
he alluded. 

Well, no more such weary hours awaiting them ! 
They were substantially on the spot, and not going 
to fade away like their puffs of smoke. 

It was a long pull to get us there, but we came to 
stay ! 

Never had a commandant of a place borne away 
such hearty washes of '^ Vive! long life!" as the 
modest American. General Merritt said of him : 
" He won all hearts in Manila, especially the Eng- 
lish ones, by being very genial, likable, manly, quiet, 
modest, shrewd, alert and tactful ! " 

And yet his jurisdiction, to use his own words, 
10 



146 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

terse as the plain people like statements, '' Ex- 
tended only from as close to shore as he could move 
his ^ flat-irons ' (the iron-clads) to as far inland as 
they tlirow a shell !" 

Ah, the gratification in being on the open Blue 
again ! 




ADMIRAL MONTOJO, COMMANDER OF THE SPANISH FLEET AT MANILA. 

At Hong Kong was a foretaste of the kind of greet- 
ing he was to be overwhelmed with from all sorts 
and conditions of men, who had heard (aud who had 
not ?) of '^the hero of one of the most marvelously 
brilliant victories in the annals of naval warfare." 

Here he heard the earnest wish uttered that he 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I47 

would give the Great West a chance to see him, by 
crossing the Continent. 

He sighed, too, and responded : 

'^ If I were twenty years younger ! " 

But he was not so disconsolate as all that ! It was 
the languorous tropical sun and sickening miasmatic 
zephyrs — wait till the native east winds of the Green 
Mountains would frisk it out of him and his gallant 
crew ! 

One of the best things for a patriot to hear at 
Hong Kong was of the fine impression the American 
soldiers and sailors, more markedly the Western 
volunteers, had already made in Japan and China. 
Whether coming to form the army in Luzon, or 
returning home from termination of service, or in- 
valided, the cry was general : '' They are excellent 
young men ! " 

The best of the hulks on which these were im- 
prisoned Avere mudscows compared to those beautiful 
snow-white Indian transports on which the British 
have expended the science of twenty years to make 
the Queen^s soldiers comfortable on long voyages. 
But our men bore the innumerable plagues and dis- 
comforts with the same gallantry as they had shown 
in the jungles of Cebu, Mindanao, Luzon and Samar ; 
on shore they never had a scuffle with the native 
police or their own provost guards. 

Better than making America known in the Far 
East, they are making us endeared and respected. 

Even here the most biassed of what is called the 
" Hong Kong clique" of anti-Americans, expressed 
wonder at the Dakota Volunteers, who, like their 
comrades of Tennessee, would not sail for home, but 
landed again to stand by the side of brothers fight- 
ing with the revolutionists. 

The Olympia arrived on the 22d of May, and 
made a longer stay than anticipated. 



148 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

There was already talk of the United States pre- 
paring a Dewey Keception which would eclipse any- 
thing on the annals from the welcome to Lafayette, 
Kossuth, the Atlantic Cable, the Great Eastern, and 
the other Nine Days' Wonders. 

The old naval officers at this important British 
station, eyed him enviously, muttering with their 
Admiral: ^'Manila is his Trafalgar; but, unlike 
Nelson, he lives to enjoy his honors ! " 

No ship was in the harbor that had a gun but 
lavished powder in hailing him ; it is said that some 
traders replaced their ^'quakers," or dummies, with 
genuine long-toms in order to salute. 

At the formal visit to Governor Blake, of this 
British trading port, a major-general commanded 
the English guard of honor, and receiving troops and 
the naval detachment had a commodore at the head. 
Our Consul-general Wild man performed the pre- 
sentation of the Admiral and his officers. Lieutenant 
Brumby and Captain Lamberton. 

Vessels fouling fast in these hot waters, the 
Olymjjia laid over for a fortnight in order to have 
her metal cleaned ; during this enforced stay the 
Admiral had some time to recuperate, his health 
being still feeble at even this slight change of scene. 
This was the cause for his excusing himself from at- 
tending the British dinner in honor of the Queen to 
which he was particularly invited. 

There was one worry which was still tormenting 
him : that fate of '^ missing men,'" which troubles 
deeply a conscientious naval or military commander, 
who must regard his followers as his sons. 

Although many of the gunboats and river-patrolers 
of the Spanish, captured about Luzon, had been 
converted to our uses, there was still a want of light- 
draft vessels for the immense coast line. 

The Yorktotvn had sent a launch up an inlet where 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 



149 



the ambiisbecl Tagalos had captured it and borne away 
into captivity Lieutenant-Commander Gillmore and 
Its crew of fourteen. Distressing news had reached 
Manila of their sufferings among poor bushrangers 
who had no clothing or food to speak of for them- 
selves. But Aguinaldo was in one of his refiising-to- 
treat moods arising when he had been snubbed in 
his advances towards his ex-friends the Americanos 
A ransom. had been demanded for them which the 
United States officers had refused to discuss, in ac- 
cordance with the motto, '^The U. S. A. pays no 
price for peace.^^ Thereupon, as the brigands in all 
countries act towards the prizes which turn out un- 
reraunerative, the prisoners had to suffer. A Span- 
iard who ^^came in,^^ professed to have been a 
prisoner, too, at Bigan, where he had seen the sea- 
men, half-starved and in rags ; the commander, 
Demg of notable stature and physique, bore his 
wants best; but though ''^ in bad shape," they had 
no doubt that Uncle Sam would go the right way 
about to procure their release. Indeed, though it 
was not known till later, relief was sent to them. 

This expectation cheered up the Admiral, and 
this was the last of his Manila worries. 
- As he had said humorously to General Merritt, on 
quitting: ''1 have been walking the deck, worry- 
ing, night after night. You can do that now ! " 

It must have been striking to pass through the 
Suez Canal, Avith the incident fresh tJiereof Admiral 
Camara's Span.^h squadron being detained for 
'/ want of a dollar or two,'' to pay the tonnage dues ; 
it will be remembered that when he obtained the 
cash from home, it was useless, as he had run out of 
coal, or at least that was good enough grounds for 
sailing back over the Mediterranean to cover his 
native shores, menaced by the flying squadron of 
Commodore Watson. This, however, had no need to 



150 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

cross the Atlantic, since Spain collapsed too prema- 
turely for its guns to be trained ujDon their ports. 

Upon the Mediterranean anew, Dewey must have 
recalled his earlier visits, when he was a youth, and 
in later manhood. 

Malta, the well-known British naval station in the 
Middle-Sea, has its memories for him. Ten or more 
years prior to this transit, when he was commanding 
the European Squadron, he had to put- into that 
port to find a skilful surgeon for an operation on 
which depended continuance in that " honest service 
which was for God and mankind." 

A portion of his liver had to be removed, which 
was the foundation of tlie jocular by-name he went 
with among his brother-officers : "^ The Man with- 
out a Liver." The surgeon had gravely said, with 
the spirit of prophecy upon him: ''You can say 
anything about that man ; but, bearing tlie operation 
with that fortitude, you must add that he does not 
show ' the white liver.''" 

At the same harbor, some of his '' Pensacolas " 
went ashore and became mixed up with what may be 
classically styled the Brumalia of that cosmopolitan 
haven, more plainly, a ''brangle." The police, an 
efficient one, pursued them, but the Jack-tars man- 
aged to return to the Pensacola. Nevertlieless, it 
was a grave oifense, for the harbor master came out 
next day to complain. 

The port-captain of Malta thinks himself about on 
the level of the port- Admiral of Marryatt's sea-novels, 
and, besides, the feeling between British and Yankee 
marine worthies was not as cordial as later. 

''What can I do ?" asked Dewey. 

'' Why, your men raised a riot on shore, and you 
can assist me in arresting and punishing them," 
was the reply. 

The American captain was very courteous in the 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 



151 



expression of regret that sailors of the IT. S. N. 
should be lawless while on shore leave, but could see 
no way in which he might assist his visitor in search- 
ing out the guilty ones. 

The reply of the naval officer angered the Britisher, 
who said, somewhat peremptorily : *' You certainly 
can parade your crew before nie in order that the 
rioters may be identified." 

Looking aloft and pointing to the Stars and Stripes 




par 
drew breath. 

Much had happened since then to '' the Xelson of 
America," as the sailors in the port of Gibraltar 
termed him, as the Olpn^na steered into that famous 
stronghold of the British. 

Before this, she had touched at Villefranche, where 
the King of Italy, unable to make the hero's personal 
acquaintance, sent his old General Bogliolo to repre- 
sent him. It was appropriate that the land of Gari- 
baldi should hold out a friendly hand to the son of 
Columbia and K'ew World Freedom, for which the 
" Lion of Caprera " had fought and bled. 

This historical spot received the honored visitor on 
the 4th of September. 

In the port was the British line-of-battle ship 
Devastation. Her guns joined those of the impreg- 
nable fortress cut in the solid rock, to reply to our 
salutes for the garrison. 

At noon, the Admiral landed to proceed to the 
Hotel Bristol, as he intended to live ashore during 
the ten days' stay, for the benefit of his health. Oar 
Consul, Mr. Sprague, was an old friend, so that 
this sojourn promised to be comfortable. To enjoy 
the quiet, he refused a banquet from the British 
authorities, although he paid the usual call to the 



152 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

commandant, General Sir Robert Biddulph, who sent 
his carriage to convey him to the governor's palace. 

As they could not entertain the lion, the disap- 
pointed military and naval officers gave a dinner to 
his captains from the Olymjjia with a brilliant spread 
and international toasts, representing the Eagle and 
the Bull hobnobbing, — more Anglo- America. 

It being said at the board that the English the 
more admired our naval hero for his practical nature, 
an officer of the Royal Artillery expressed his regret 
that another practical officer, one Cornet O'Donohue, 
was not alive to see him as one of his own stamp. 

Of course, the story to illustrate ^Ir. O'D.'s prac- 
tical nature was called for. It was worth coming to 
'*the Gib." to listen to it. 

O'Donohue was one of the garrison of the fort. 
He was officer of the day when a brother-officer, who 
had taken too much wine — this was in the port- 
drinking days — walked over the rock at a point where 
there is a drop of a thousand feet, and was killed. 

When the officer of the guard made out his report, 
he made no mention of this accident. Indeed, when 
he came to fill in his report and reached the ques- 
tion, " Has anything extraordinary happened w^hile 
you were officer of the guard ? ^' he wrote, in the 
blank space reserved for the answer, " Nothing." 

Of course he was summoned before Lord Napier, 
of Magdala, the Governor of Gibraltar. When he 
appeared. Lord Napier asked, *^ You were the officer 
of the guard at Elpinstone Guard yesterday ? " 

^'1 was, sir." 

^' And this is your report ? " 

"It is, sir." 

" Lieutenant M was killed by walking over 

the rock?" 

" He was, sir." 

" You knew that when you made out your report ? '' 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I 53 

'a did, sir/' 

^^ That he was killed?" 

*^Yes, sir." 

'' And yet you said in yonr report that nothing 
extraordinary had happened on your guard ? " 

" I did, sir." 

^' Well, Mr. 0'Donohue,"said Lord Napier, sternly, 
^^ don't you think it is extraordinary when a lieuten- 
ant walks over the rock, falls one thousand feet, 
and is killed ? " 

'' Indeed, sir," was the prompt reply, ^'^ I should 
think it extraordinary if he had fallen that far and 
not been killed." 

An old sailor of the war-ship, at the celebrated 
rock-fortress, recalled an anecdote of the place, set- 
ting on evidence his admiral's detestation of drink 
and falsehood. 

A petty officer, going on land for his ' ' liberty," 
had taken the liberty of imbibing too deeply. 

When called upon to explain, in the morning, he 
aggravated the offense by jorotesting to his chief that 
he was only taken ill. 

^^Sick?" repeated Commodore Dewey, fanning 
off the breath impregnated with Maltese wine, which, 
poured out of goatskins, is strong as old cider : 
'^You are lying. You were very drunk. I heard 
you myself. I will not have my men lie to me. I 
don't ask them not to drink, but I do expect them 
to tell the truth. If you had told me frankly you 
had taken a drop too much ' on liberty,' you would 
have been forward by this time, for you returned to 
the ship. But for lying you get ten days in irons. 
Let me have the truth hereafter. I am told you are 
a good seaman. A good seaman has no business 
telling lies." 

As the good ship steered out into the great ocean, 
leaving the dreadful Bay of Biscay to the good side 



154 THE LIFE And CAREEk 

— that is, the off oue — it might be that a vision came 
back of the future admiral hiying out on the 3'ard 
to take in sail at an emergency — one of those acts 
wliich endear to the seaman his superior, by proving 
that he might have '^ crawled in at the cabin wiudow/' 
but that he could do the able-bodied seaman's work. 

Mr. Charles E. Rand, who was on the Flag-ship 
Colorado at the time, relates : 

^^ Admiral Dewey was then lieutenant-commander 
and executive officer. Once, during a terrific gale, 
we were off the Bay of Biscay, oftentimes a nasty 
place, too, and the command was given to save the 
ship. The old Colorado could not move faster than 
eight knots an hour, and we were on a lee shore. I 
tell you it looked bad for us. 

*' At the height of the storm the admiral took the 
bridge, relieving Dewey, and the order was given to 
set sails to help us out to sea. We fellows had to 
hustle into the riggings, and just to encourage ns, 
Dewey himself mounted the ladder, and in less time 
than I can tell it, was on the yard unfurling sail. 
It was an exciting scene, and a dangerous situation; 
but in a short time we were clear of the coast, and 
safe from wreck on one of the rockiest shores I 
know of." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SOFT AND GEi;rTLE PASSAGE. — ^' AMEKICA, HO *' ! — 
^*^HE IS here!" — THE FIRST APPLAUSE. — THE 
XAVY WELCOMES. — YOUJs'G GEORGE. — ALL'S WELL 
THAT BEGIIs^S AVELL. 

The voyage was resumed with only one more stop- 
ping-place, the Madeiras. There is one show-place 
here, at Funchal, to wit, the famous ossuary of the 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 55 

old Franciscan Convent, Avliere a chamber is dec- 
orated alow and aloft with bones of holy men of 
the" fraternity, who have been thus interred in 
the air. 

Dewey had pledged that he would be in New York 
Harbor, in the hands of the Reception Committee 
on the 28th of September, and as it would have 
broken his heart for him to break his word, never 
was the Ohjmiyia handled more carefully, in the heat 
of battle, than by her sailing-master, who shared 
his commander's pride in the craft. 

The Southern Atlantic route had been chosen, as 
there was ample time ; besides, as it turned out, the 
Northern route was uncommonly stormy this year, 
and even in such masterpieces of maritime art as 
the great Oceanic, the nasty bleak winds and cross 
seas were severely felt. The Admiral escaped all 
this up to the end, when there was, on the home 
shores, a break in the "Queen's weather," as the 
English call meteorological pleasantness, or '^ Dewey 
weather," as liis seamen say. 

As a profound navigator, the commander, of 
course, kept the vessel's progress in his mind, asking 
and knowing all about the currents, winds, bearings, 
speed, and course. 

It was trimming to a nicety, as he did not wish 
to arrive aforetime to embarrass the Committee or, 
worse, to be late. 

So they crossed at a fair pace and slackened u]) so 
as to reach Sandy Hook, that sentry at the gates of 
the Eastern metropolis, with " plenty to spare," for 
later maneuvers. 

One propeller-blade had been twisted and was hung 
up idle, but the othersufficed to give movement over 
smooth water. 

Sandy Hook loomed w^ on the evening of the 24th 
September, Monday of a memorable week. 



156 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Unfortunately, there was to a seaman's eye evi- 
dence of a storm threatening. 

The question arose : '' Shall we stand out to sea 
again ? " 

It is amusing to a landsman that sailors should 
prefer the open waters in a tempest to a shore, on a 
large vessel. 

''No," replied the Admiral, ''we shall run in and 
anchor. A storm would upset tilings aboard, and 
the crew will catch cold, coming out of a hot climate ; 
they would not be in good shape for festivities.''^ 

Accordingly the immense anchors touched Amer- 
iciin soil at that lonesome spot barring the waves of 
the Atlantic. 

Pilot-boat No. 7 hove in sight — beauties of the 
deep, of such was the America, the yacht which 
first wrested the supremacy of the seas from England. 
John Peterson was the pilot, and he was received 
with all the delight treasured up on a long voyage 
for the fellow-countryman who brings the aroma of 
home. He also brought some oysters which the 
officers partook of, along with bits of news, for the 
first time in two years. John was surprised that they 
were so cold at coming into these seas, where the 
nor'-easter which ''fetched them up shivering" was, 
to him, only a cheery breeze. 

" They have it warm for ye up the harbor, I hear," 
added he, grinning. 

Yes, it was cold to the Olymjyians and the chief 
was glad to have his Chinese servant rake extra 
blankets out of the locker that night. But the chill 
made him sleep better, and, as usual, for Dewey is a 
little of the Malacle Imaginaire—" the Robust In- 
valid," by reason of the tropical clime — he was re- 
vived. 

In the meanwhile, the telegraph at the Hook had 
not been idle — the wires heated with the swiftness 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I 5/ 

with which the tidings were sent inland : '^ Dewey is 
sighted!" When Nelson returned, dead, alas ! to 
be carried to AYestminster Abbey — or, truthfully, to 
St. Paul's — the news ran from coast to capital by 
signal-flags ; this slow course would not suit our 
people. Before the Admiral had breakfast, in short, 
the gunners who had been standing by their pieces, 
trigger-string in hand, were pulling, and " Dewey 
is here !" roared by the cannon mouth not only in 
Xew York but all over the Union. 

No fears of a storm swallowing \\\) our demigod, 
now, from jealousy of an ocean divinity ! 

With the sun, the sailors were up in a keen wind 
which made them move with the utmost alacrity, and 
those who had no work to do, swung and hugged 
their arms, did steps of hornpipes and otherwise 
acted, as nearly as a seaman can do, like the motor- 
men on' a freezing morning in January. 

If they had had the Lick telescope, they might 
have seen, over at Greenville, N. J., the biggest 
American flag hoisted of which history tells. 

In the mean time, coming along shore and down 
the port-mouth were the first tugs and pleasure- 
steamers, crowded with people who had sat up all 
night and embarked with cockcrow, in order to have 
a first peep at the idol of the day — of all days. 

The Admiral rose betimes ; it promised to be one 
of our fall days when, as John Jay said, nothing in 
Italy equals the beauty of them. He smiled at the 
men surreptitiously capering like goats to revive 
their circulation, for he sympathized with them ; he 
looked up at his pennant stiffly cleaving the sky like 
a shark-pin in the waters, and muttered with blue 
lips that it Avas ''A bit too cold," yet he did his 
^'^ constitutional " walk just the same. 

At seven o'clock, with some surprise, the officer of 
the deck reported that two war-ship masts, undeni- 



158 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

ably different from anything peaceful that spars a 
ship, were visible to the south. It was soon identi- 
fied by the marine glass as the U. S. Cruiser Chicago. 
As she came rushing up the channel, the Olym^na's 
men were dashing to quarters for which the bugle 
had sounded. 

This vessel carried Eear-Admiral Howson, whose 
pennant, as she passed her sister-ship, was imme- 
dately supplemented by a flight of small flags, greet- 
ing the other chief. At the same time the batteries 
of both ships were opened for business, and presently 
seventeen guns belched the salute to Admiral Dewey, 
to which he replied with the proper number for his 
comrade. 

As if these were a signal, all the guns around about 
began to fume and bellow. From five war-ships of 
Admiral Sampson's fleet, the batterers-down of Span- 
ish power in the West Indies, horizontal shoots of 
flame and vapor rolled over the water and dissipated 
what morning haze Aurora had left to veil the burn- 
ing sun ; the ingenious herald who traced our hero's 
lineage back to Thor the Thunderer ought to have 
been here to hear him hailed with this tremendous 
reverberation. 

But there is something better for cordiality than 
reports of ordnance. Just at this nick came along 
the pride of Gotham's passenger service, the crack-a- 
jack Sandy Hooh, crammed with curious persons, 
who made her careen, staunch as she is, by racing to 
the side towards the Olym^ria and giving an unani- 
mous yell : "■ Welcome, Dewey ! " 

The salutation was so sincere that the Admiral 
bowed to it, and remarked with an unsteady 
voice ! 

*' Thev seem glad to see me ! " 

'• ' Seem ! ' " said a reporter, " ' they know not 
seems ! ' Wait till you get up to the city ! " 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 159 

This man knew of what he spoke — New York was 
no longer the foremost town of this seaboard, but, 
thanks to the thousands who had been pouring in 
from all quarters, it was a gathering of all the States ; 
its population doubled in ten days. That is what 
leads us to dilate on the details of this unparalleled 
reception. It was not the offering of a city, however 
great, but the tribute of a nation. 

At half-past seven, the Olympiads men went to 
breakfast, but the cannonade, which continued to 
find echoes everywhere, the tremor in the air ahead, 
where points of brightness and color fluttered like 
fireflies trying to outvie the sun, and this cheer from 
the excursion boat, thrilled them ; they ate with 
little relish. 

At eight o'clock, a peculiar flag on a U. S. cutter 
betokened an official visit. This was the Dolphin 
flying the Navy flag for the Secretary ; his Assistant, 
Allen, was coming to act for him and the Navy. 

As she came abreast, fifteen guns were fired in 

salute. 

The band began national airs as he ascended the 
gangway plank. At the stage from which Mr. 
Allen should walk upon the deck, the Admiral 
warmlv presented himself to help him forward. 

Both the little DoIjjJiin and the huge war-ship 
were already hovered around by countless small craft, 
under sail and steam, and even rowed out so far, 
containing excursionists who had dared the dawning 
fogs to greet the cynosure. 

^'I welcome you, Admiral," said the new-comer, 
'^and congratulate you in the name of the Navy !" 

'^Thanks, thanks," responded the other with 
warmth which there was no reason he should 

conceal. 

Here he was face to face with his own folk, with 
none but a friend, let him look where he would. 



l6o THE LIFE AND CAREER 

The more formal greeting took place in the li- 
brary, the Secretary marching between the marines 
presenting arms, Avhile the band continued to play 
tunes in which our soldiers and sailors have found 
inspiration for noble deeds. 

A little before nine, orders were out for the ship 
to proceed up that incomparable harbor, beside 
which fades the Bay of Xaples, the Bosphorus, the 
Golden Gate, Halifax, and what you will. 

Steam had lifted the ponderous anchors, and be- 
fore the flukes were seen arising and dripping like 
the fins of a Leviathan, the colossal war-engine began 
to cleave the water. 

The flotilla of pleasure boats had increased every 
minute, and as she took the lead, this retinue looked 
like the captive kings and conquered people which 
a Cffisar brought after him when he was given his 
'^ triumph ''' in ancient Rome. 

Dewey looked round as he went upon the after- 
bridge — not the forward one where he had directed 
the thunderbolts which made Admiral Montojo's 
fleet look like Judas's rejected thirty pieces of silver — 
and said, not more than half-reluctantly : 

"^ Well, if I must be a hero, I must ! I am ready. 
I thought I was too old for such honors, but here is 
Senator Depew saying that I am yet but a young 
fellow ; and, to tell you the truth, I feel so ! " 

The cokl-drawn truth is that the sun was up, and 
it invigorated him— Dewey was himself again ! 
This " hero in spite of liimself " was the same, who, 
after the Battle of Manila (entitled by AVilson, the 
British naval authoritv, ''the great and glorious 
victory") observed to his officers, gathered around 
him as he sat on the deck : 

'' Gentlemen, I believe we will hear of this. I be- 
lieve the American people will think it wns well done. 
There is a picturesqueness about the Philippines and 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. l6l 

a completeness about the victory that will arouse 
some enthusiasm." 

Those who were looking out at the forts in the 
Narrows, saw the Olymjna, like Neptune among 
the Nereids, rapidly approaching, followed, helter- 
skelter, by the miscellaneous collection of craft, 
pressed into the service from all sides, the passengers 
screaming and waving toy-flags and brightly-colored 
handkerchiefs, the whistles shrieking to split, sirens 
booming, darkey cooks banging gongs, itinerant 
musicians playing unidentifiable tunes on all manner 
of instruments, in full, a horrific din which only the 
irrepressible enthusiasm of the moment excused. 

All this din was drowned in the overwhelming 
thunder from the forts saluting, to which the 
Olijmjjia's flags dipped in response. 

On the shores to right and left, the masses of 
people were clearly defined — one could count the 
stars on the flag they waved, so clear was the air. 

In keeping with the battle-ship^s majestic advance, 
went this double tidal wave of patriotism. 

Then the lively, pellucid atmosphere thickened 
with the powder fumes, and, hanging over the recip- 
ient of this hubbub, many were reminded that she 
was the central figure in that scene of victory which 
happened on a May morning over yonder. 

One soft note in all this fracas deej)ly affected the 
few privileged to behold it. 

The Admiral's only son had come aboard. He is 
a self-reliant, unassuming youth, who is in the dry- 
goods trade. When he entered business in New 
York, not long ago, he adopted his father's sensible 
advice to begin at the lowermost round, and so he is 
receiving but a mediocre salary. Hearing of this, 
one of those enterprising newspapers which hunt 
after notables to garnish the daily feast of '^celebri- 
ties on the sideboard," could not fail, through its 
II 



l62 



THE LIFE AND CAREER 



conductor, to desire an interview. In the course of 
this, it was advanced, in a kind of Irishman's, or 
broad hint, that he wouhl like him to join the staff, 
at a princely recompense. There was no call for his 
articles — in fact, he was not required to do any 
writing at all ; somebody else would do the literary 
matter to which he need only append his name ! " 




THE LATE WIFE OF THE ADMIRAL. MRS. DEWEY DIED IN 1872. 



The young man, spite of his creditable demeanor, 
is full of ^^ snap." The editor thought for a brief 
spell that he had run up against the Oh/mpia's 
Samson post, so abrupt was the indignant rejection 
of two hundred a month for '' only a name I " 

The bystanders, at the meeting *^of father and son, 
thought that there would be embarrassment, for 
the younger man had a good idea of how the nation 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 163 

was about to liail the conquering hero. But not at 
all. Any awe he might have felt was blown to the 
winds instantly on their hands pressing. 

Having dropped the forts behind her, the Olympia 
approached the White Squadron. They presented 
a strikingly bewitching aspect to a naval expert — 
clean and trim as a Dutch village. 

The Admiral made some feeling remarks which 
denoted that he had by heart their doings in the 
nearer hemisphere, and that he was unjealously proud 
of the companion work they had done to his fleets. 

Between the Oli/nipia and the Brooklyn, as two 
ends of a pair of tongs, the Spanish fleets had been 
smashed like a toad. 

As the two flag-ships were about to salute, Dewey 
went from his station to the after-deck to make sure 
that all was done with faultlessness. This change 
of position brought him within view of some in the 
fleet of boats which still accompanied tlie progress. 
He bowed and smiled to the more conspicuous, send- 
ing them home happy in the belief that " Dewey 
has noticed me ! '' 

On the instant of the Ohjmjjia being anchored at 
the head of all the battle-ships, an officer was sent 
off to notify the Mayor of New York, as the titular 
host, that all was ready — " The victim is in his 
hands," said some one jestingly. 

It was a willing victim, and if they killed it, it 
would be with kindness. 

The ship's gangway was besieged by hosts which 
tried to achieve an entrance more strenuously than 
ever an enemy had— but the marines were impassable 
— none went by to the cabin but officials. 



164 I'HE LIFE AND CAREER 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THURSDAY OF DEWEY WEEK. — CIVIC MEEDS. — A CITY 
TOPSY - TURVY. — UNHOUSED MULTITUDES. — THE 
LAND PARADE. — FATIGUED BUT THANKFUL. 

Thursday was bound to be as busy a day as any 
other, so the Admiral was up at his usual hour, five 

A. M. 

The Army was represented by the Commander-in- 
chief, General Miles, who called. 

Then, the Governor of New York hastened not 
merely as an official entitled to the step of prece- 
dence over the Mayor expected, but from former 
comradeship. 

The Governor is Theodore Roosevelt, the famous 
hunter of big game in the Rockies ; the captain of 
the Rough Riders, whose exploits are indelibly writ 
on the Cuban AVar annals ; the Assistant Secretary 
of the Navy who had the clearest idea of the magni- 
tude of the task before our Admiral in the Far East. 

It may long remain disputable who really chose 
and insisted on Admiral George Dewey liaving the 
Asiatic fleet to direct and guide to victory, but it is 
absolutely certain that Roosevelt saw to it that the 
winning fleet was not to gain a barren victory or, 
perhaps, to have the laurels snatched away by a 
covetous hand. 

The official correspondence with Dewey makes it 
manifest that it was by Secretary Roosevelt's direc- 
tion that the Oh/mpia was retained on the Asiatic 
Station after she had been ordered home. Her 



d 




OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 165 

officers knew privately that she was expected to call 
at San Francisco. 

I 

Despatch (Confidential), Roosevelt to Dewev 
(Feb. 25th) : ^ 

" Order the squadron, except Mo7iocacy, to Hong 
Kong. Keep full of coal. In the event of a declara- 
tion of war with Spain your duty will be to see that 
the Spanish squadron does not leave tlie Asiatic coast, 
and then oifensive operations in Philippine Islands. 
Keep Olympia until further orders." 

A foot note by the Bureau of Navigation says : 

'' Olympia had had orders to proceed to United 

States.'' 

Now, since Roosevelt had upheld the appointment 
of Dewey, although it was objected that he was a 
naval dandy, it was compulsory upon him in logic 
to uphold him if he were truly on the road to a 
battle. 

At the juncture when Dewey expected to be warned 
to leave Hong Kong as a neutral port, arrived the 
Baltimore. She had gone round to the Hawaiian 
Islands to touch at Honolulu ; there she took on 
board among ordinary stores some special cases which 
had come overland to San Francisco with such care 
that the stevedores had muttered " Dynamite ! " in 
handling them. They were, in fact, the shells for 
the largest guns, the turret eight-inch, on the big 
ships. Indispensable ! in the days of the muzzle- 
loaders naval sea-dogs were never at a loss ; for 
powder they used charcoal of their own burning, 
saltpeter out of sea-birds' caves, etc., and made 
bullets and shot of cut ''pigs," and even Dutch 
cheese at a pinch ! 
^ But modern guns require their accurately-fash- 



1 66 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

ioned equipment, and the Olpnpia and her consorts 
would have been muzzled before the enemy had the 
Baltimore failed to bring the longed-for " food for 
the big fellows." 

It had come out later, as all the world knows, 
that the Battle of Manila Bay was not suspended in 
the heat of action sheerly to give the men time for 
breakfast, but because it was necessary to ascertain 
how the not superfluous stock of the special ammu- 
nition was running out. Therefore, the men never 
turned out to do honor to a man more quickly and 
heartily than to cheer Governor and ex-Secretary 
Roosevelt. 

As a vessel of war is always in a fit state, the prep- 
arations for the reception were no trouble to the 
Olympiads officers, but to the Mayor and government 
of Greater New York, as the conglomeration of 
boroughs under that new head is styled, it was a 
terrible week of anxiety and tribulation. 

Manhattan is accused of reserve, coldness, a cos- 
mopolitan indifference; no heart; all for business, 
which, we know, excludes sentiment ; still, those 
who know her longest, are assured that, when aroused, 
she never stints to welcome those who enter in at her 
wide door. As Dickens' character says : " Todgers' 
does it well ! " 

The population was doubled by the addition of 
five million strangers ! and most of them would be 
concentrated in the limits of the main city, that is, 
on :^[anhattan Island. As they were estimated to 
spend ten million dollars a day, they were guests not 
to be treated niggardly. 

Hence the police were on the alert from the start, 
Avarning off suspicious characters, and locking up 
for the week those who boldly maintained a right to 
stay out-doors. Fortunately^, as we are a temperate 
people, and most of our foreign citizens drink light 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 167 

wine or thin beer, there was little disorder to be 
apprehended on the score of inebriety. 

Thieves and drunkards being eliminated, the rest 
accommodated itself to circumstances with the elastic 
good humor of persons assembled with a common 
view. 

Long before the week, passengers on trains and 
boats told with glee that they were en route to see 
the Victor of Manila. But after the great guns had 
thunderously informed the nation that " Dewey was 
in the Lower Bay," the influx jumped to a stagger- 
ing figure. 

Everything that could carry was impressed into 
usefulness ; railroad cars were dusted up from their 
sidings where they had been discarded ; old steam- 
boats were inspected — all that sailed on a keel or 
ran on wheels brought a contingent to the army of 
sight-seers invading New York. Freight trains Avere 
suspended, while all the staff forwarded the freight 
which conveys itself ^^on the hoof.'^ 

All the hotels of size were prematurely crowded ; 
in the corridors, cots were spread and guests were 
glad to sleep on the billiard tables. The old joke of 
poles being run out of the windows on which patrons 
might perch, was revived with a serious look. 
AVealthy house-owners retired to back rooms and let 
out their others to customers who never expected to 
rest in such superb apartments. Untenanted dwell- 
ings were snapped up by speculators, and shanties 
were built like Aladdin's palace between dog's bark 
and cock-crow. 

The overflow trickled out to the suburbs, and the 
splendid ferryboats were jammed night and day 
carrying occupants for the spare bedrooms of the 
outlying districts as far as trolley-cars would reach. 

Then rose a floating colony which made the water- 
side resemble Venice or Canton River ; not only 



l68 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

were the hay sloops, the canal-boats and produce 
barges turned into mock '^floating palaces/' but the 
steamers happening to be tied up at the wharves 
were similarly employed. Up went the prices for 
such improvised attentions, but a holiday like this 
comes but once in an eon ; a dollar was but as a 
dime at other more rational times. 

The streets were thronged with the curious, en- 
rapt in the preparations going on to give them a glut 
of show and pageantry ; with surpassing good humor 
the masses made passages for the gods of the day, 
the carpenters, painters, decorators, who permeated 
the mobs like quicksilver running over foil. 

Numberless stands began to rise all over the route 
where the Land Parade was to march ; besides which, 
the city generously erected larger and still more 
numerous " stoops," for its guests — not the rich and 
titled— but the school-children, the recipients of 
public charity and her wards comprehensively ; for 
the seven or eight stands there was furnished eight 
million feet of lumber at an expenditure of 1180,000, 
all to accommodate at seven or eight spots 30,000 
persons. One of the largest held 1,500 school-chil- 
dren, dressed in white and in blue, so posed that the 
former spelled the name of '/ DEWEY " on the 
cerulean background of the majority. 

Aged visitors to New York may remember the 
First Crystal Palace ; it stood beside the old Croton 
Reservoir ; the latter building, condemned for im- 
provement as a public library, was covered with a 
platform holding 3,000 persons. 

The superficial effect was of some brains in the 
ornamentation ; indeed, this was not the adornment 
of old times, when one householder hung out a rug, 
another the curtains, and a third the home-made 
standard ; artists were called in to give harmony and 
a certain uniformity which appeased the fatigued 



M 




6F admiral DEWEY. 169 

sight after too much hue and glitter ; principally 
one saw the national tri-color and the Navy blue- 
and-gold. 

Streets were done in one plan ; house fronts were 
draped so that no one was conspicuous. 

On the pavement the uniforms of the regular army 
and of the citizen soldiery were plentiful ; the 
jokers said that one could not move a cable-car on 
Broadway without risk of crushing a State Gov- 
ernor. 

In fact, everybody was invited to this national 
home-warming. 

** North and South together brought 
Now own the same electric thought : 
In peace a common flag salute." 

All the embellishment reached its highest degree 
in the ^' Dewey Arch/' the popular name for a hand- 
some structure put up at Madison Square in the 
kind of stucco known as "'staff/' vulgarly ''stuff/' 
a corruption of " Staffordshire/' from the pottery 
clay of that English county. First used in Europe, 
notably for making fictile statuary, so that the 
groups could be tested on the points to be occupied 
by the finished work, it was made known to us by its 
wholesale use at the Chicago Fair. The beauty and 
chasteness of the ''White City," so reared has caused 
its general adoption for hasty effect, yet of a gratify- 
ing kind. 

Sculptors and artists gave their talent and skill to 
produce this testimonial to Dewey's worth, laboring 
night and day to be done on time, some falling ill 
from their exertions ; one or two martyrs to art died, 
in fact. But they will have the consolation to know 
that it was hailed as a success, and a subscription 
was immediately commenced to perpetuate it in 
marble, although it might cost a million. 



Ijro THE LIFE AND CAREER 

If the general effect is too near that of the Paris 
'^ Arch of the Triumph of the Star/' nevertheless, it 
is new to ns^ and the resemblance is in a measure 
owing to the fact that the French designers copied, 
like us, the monuments of the Romans. It stands in 
front of the Worth Monument, a general of the 
Mexican AVar. The future site is not yet selected. 
It will be a civic treasure, anywhere. 

It is ^^To the Triumph of the American Navy/' 
hence the subjects were nautical and from our 
history ; the persons prominent are Paul Jones, 
Decatur, Preble, Hull, Farragut, etc. In more than 
one of the groups and panels the American sailor 
is depicted as he appeared at the Manila Battle, 
stripped to the waist. 

Both ways, it is led up to by a colonnade, the 
columns being adorned with Victories offering 
wreaths. Tlie width of the central passage did not 
allow a regiment to march through in company 
front, but they did so in fours. 

Thousands haunted this spot to watch the sculp- 
tors and plasterers at work, prolonged into the dark 
and assisted by the electric light. 

Comparatively few persons had been on the 
Olymjjia, and fewer still had conversed with the hero 
of the day, but these diffused all over town the per- 
sonality, so winning, of the naval celebrity. 

They said he was not the bronze-figured, steel- 
hearted commander of an iron-clad fleet, but human, 
kindly, simple and good-natured. 

Extra editions circulated hourly in the crowds ; 
they showed that Dewey had bewitched the Knights 
of the Stylograph like all great men by being profuse 
upon trivialities and discreet about grave matters. 

The popular picture of him had to be corrected, 
though, for we were not to behold him as at the 
battle, in a white duck summer neglige, with a 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I /I 

traveling-cap snatched np — a cap going down to 
posterity, on his head, as that Scotch cap which 
Abraham Lincohi donned to pass through inimical 
Baltimore to be inaugurated. 

Dewey Avould be seen as the Admiral, Chief of the 
Navy, in azure and gold, almost the nautical Brum- 
mel of twenty years ago and even later, when his 
critics at Washington reproached the Department 
for sending out a *"' dude "' to Asia who was so par- 
ticular about his collars ! " Ay,'' retorted one who 
knew him, " but we send one wdio will fight, and we 
are not particular about the linen of such a man, as 
long as he wears any collar at all ! " 

Folks whispered, and the touch of fellow-feeling 
made them smile : 

'' Thinking of the flowery path he has to tread, he 
shrinks from the ordeal ! " 

To use his own words: ''I rather dread the 
thought of going through the ordeal — the noise and 
hubbub of crowds, to which I am unaccustomed. 
Not that I do not appreciate the honor the people 
do me, do not think that, but, to say the truth, I 
was wholly unprepared for the great wave of en- 
thusiasm with which we have been met on my 
return home. 

^MVe had expected, of course, quite a reception, 
but this exaggeration of sentiment — this hero-wor- 
ship (here a wave of color spread slowly over the 
Admiral's face and there was a suspicion of tears in 
his eyes) is something that I did not dream of. 

'^ So while I am almost afraid of the next few 
days, 1 am at the same time filled with a vast joy 
and thankfulness that I belong to a nation that 
knows how to thank so nobly its servants who do 
their duty. 

" But, with Von Moltke, I hold that a man should 
not be judged too soon. ^ No man,' said Von Moltke, 



1/2 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

' is known even to his own family until after he is 
dead/ and he believed that people should not make 
their estimate of a man till then. 

*' That, I know, is a little too slow for progressive 
Americans. They are generous to a fault and im- 
pulsive to a great degree. But there is no denying 
that they do things in a princely fashion. 

*^ I feel that our people ought to wait a while in 
my case. I fear they are making me out too mucli 
of a hero, and if they should be disappointed ulti- 
mately how flat I should feel and what a fall would 
there be ! Yet, after the fight tliere in Manila Bay, 
I feel it was out of the common." 

His name was on every lip, his image in every 
eye ; citizens who could not yet speak our tongue 
freely sported the Navy cockade on their hats ; 
children of distant nationalities were dressed in his 
ship's colors ; horses, carts, wliips, all was decorated 
with a Dewey memento. The Chinese burnt gilt 
paper in his honor in their temples ! 

Little children lisped, as a new lullaby : 

" Dewey was the morning, 
Dewey was the clay ; 
Dewey was the hero 
Of old Manila Bay ! " 

With the freedom of the city. New York presented 
him with a gold loving-cup worth 15,000, while a pop- 
ular subscription, in dimes, stood for the tribute of 
50,000 people ; it was a giant, standing six feet high, 
of coin silver. 

Summing up the situation, an uptown store-keeper 
wrote across his show-window : '' George, You Own 
the Town!" Other mottoes were: ''Hail, the 
Victor of Manila!" ''We all feel just good, for 
Dewey's come sailing home ! " and " Welcome, 
Dewey !" gleamed everywhere from house-fronts to 
pennants, from balloons and wire screens in the air. 




LOVING CUP PRESENTED TO ADMIRAL DEWEY BY THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1/3 

One unequaled compliment was in a railroad com- 
pany's employes refraining from a strike because it 
was ' • Dewey Week ! " The Columbia University had 
to postpone its opening ; business was suspended ex- 
cept to cater to the guests and the military and 
official world ever arriving. A rose was named after 
him ; and celebrities know that this is no easy honor, 
since all the world cannot get its bust on a cheap 
pipe or a cigar label. If any deed were done quickly 
and thoroughly, the verdict was *' Dewey done it ! " 

As the poet of the sidewalk warbled : 

*' We've babies christened Dewey — 

The pretty little pets — 
We've Dewey opera liouses 

And Dewey statuettes. 
There's Dewey drinks by dozens 

And Dewey shirt waists, too, 
With Dewey belts and buckles, 

Likewise a Dewey shoe. 

*' They're making Dewey buttons, 

They're are making Dewey hats, 
And ' Dewey ' is imprinted 

On collars and cravats. 
They're making Dewey ' tobies,' 

And thus they name cigars ; 
They're making Dewey cocktails 

To push across the bars. 

" We've made a ' day ' for Dewey, 

And there are Dewey nights, 
With lithographs of Dewey — 

Oh, some of them are sights ! 
There is a Dewey button, 

That's blossomed with the year, 
While ' lobster a la Dewey ' 

Is popular, I hear. 

" They're making Dewey gaiters. 
And Dewey slippers, too ; 
They're making Dewey ribbons. 
In red and white and blue. 



174 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

They put the name of Dewey 

On anything they like, 
And soon upon the market 

There'll be a Dewey bike." 

His affability struck the masses as delightfully 
new in a hero. His fraternal embrace to Admiral 
Sampson was as impressive as his condescension in 
letting his hand rest on a lad^s shoulder that they 
might be both the victim of a " Kodak-fiend.*^ 

To the champion prize-fighter, visiting his ship, 
he had not withheld a pleasing word. 

At the end of the week, a push-cart man totaled 
up the general dictum in a card on his cart : 

" Dewey, come again ! '' 

The most remarkable effusion was that of the 
Spanish Minister, Duke d'Arcos. He said that the 
extraordinary welcome did not surprise him as ^' no 
honor could be too great for one who had served his 
country so well ! " Bearing in mind what this serv- 
ice was, this was a magnanimous, if not a magnifi- 
cent, compliment. 

But above all, truly a national tribute, was the 
spontaneous declaration that George Dewey had 
'* the first call " on the ^^ Presidential Chair."' Such 
a man might steer clear of politics and yet enter the 
White House, untrammeled, like ^^ Old Hickory" 
or ^' Kough-and-Ready Taylor. '' 

The Admiral was not an isolated celebrity ; Ave 
speak of the Generals of Washington and Napoleon's 
Marshals, and so of Dewey's Captains. These were 
being rewarded all over the land ; their ships receiv- 
ing silver services, their hands being filled with 
crowns, wreaths, and swords of honor, usually at 
their proud birthplaces. But there was a strong 
wish that they should be by his side in this greeting. 

People knew their names by heart, also. Gridley 
of the Olym2naf Wildes of the Boston, Dyer of the 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 175 

Baltimore, Wood of the Petrel, AValker of the 
Concord, ^' and there are others.'' 

Gridley died on the homeward voyage ; Dyer, who 
silenced the Spanish batteries after Montojo's were 
sunk and burnt, fought against the most resistance 
ManiLa presented ; a volunteer from the mercliant 
service for the Civil War, he, like Dewey, served 
under Farragut, who promoted him for gallantry ; 
he was in his native Massachusetts at this time ; 
Wildes, of the same state, is also a hero of the last 
w^ar, having fought on monitors and ironclads, and, 
particularly, at Farragut's triumphant Battle of Mo- 
bile ; he was at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Captain 
Coghlan is master of the Puget Sound Navy Yard. 

Their presence would have atoned for the absence 
of the President and Cabinet; invited, they had all 
declined and, for them, came the Assistant Secretary 
of the Navy. However, as the President was to 
greet Dewey at Washington and present him with 
the sword voted by Congress, that might pass. 

These honors were very well, including engrossed 
parchments from schools of learning, and the prize- 
money (few know that some of the Spanish vessels, 
laid up in Manila, were raised and served under our 
flag), the people wanted to render their gratitude in 
their own way. 

That is why a hnndred thousand soldiers w^ould 
have formed the Thursday's procession, but this 
army could not have been handled. 

It was restricted to something like forty thousand. 
The notable features were the detachments of the 
Navy and Marines, regulars, the Astor Battery re- 
turned from Cuba, under command of the million- 
aire patriot ; the Old Guard ; Veterans of the 
Spanish- American War (the G. A. R. did not par- 
ticipate because refused the right of the line, destined 
for the Navy), and companies of National Guards ouji 



176 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

of nearly every state. The forty-eight Highlanders 
from Canada, represented our North Countrymen of 
the future. From Pennsylvania, came Philippine 
Veterans. 

This imposing array, brilliant with variety and com- 
posed of the mercantile and business elements in a 
great measure, defiled at the City Hall, sumptuously 
decorated, before the Admiral and the Mayor and dis- 
tinguished guests, the pick of our society, including 
the Governors whose guards of honor passed in the 
show. 

It must not be inferred that in this carnival of 
patriotism '' the men behind the guns" were ignored. 
They were the objects of public felicitation — '' We 
cannot fairly expect to shake hands with Dewey, 
but we can get hold of his sailors ! " was the popular 
cry. 

When they got hold of them they did not know 
when to let go. The ships had drawn a maximum of 
w^orship, and with Dewey, the Olymjna was pronounced 
'' The finest you have got. I am proud of her as 
the Navy ought to be. Just as comfortable as a 
yacht. Look at her lines — anything prettier ? and 
those guns ! they can speak ! " 

Ay, they did speak to the Spanish, and the Amer- 
ican people heard, while the echo went around the 
globe. 

Those allowed aboard had pulled the ears of 
'' Bob," the Chinese pet dog ; and scratched the 
back of Senor Sagasta, the mascot pig and playmate 
of the deck hands, and admired the polished guns — 
but the seamen — our brothers of the outer defense 
line — they were the idols ! 

It was but an exponent of the whole spirit, that 
eatiug-house keeper who ticketed his windows : 
^'Free dinners for the Olympiads crew !" Every- 
thing they could point at throughout the town was 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I// 

freely theirs. Traders would be insulted at their 
offering to pay for anything. 

So Thursday passed joyously amid glorious 
weather. 

In the night, the city broke out into flame like a 
Spanish fleet under our guns — all was illuminated 
from the cellars to the tiptop of the loftiest ''sky- 
scrapers/' — all the hues, all the variety in shimmer 
and effulgence of the modern pyrotechnist. 

At the smoking concert at the great hotel, the 
Waldorf-Astor, the crew of the Olympia were feasted, 
to the number of two hundred and fifty ; in the bal- 
cony were seated, to witness their thorough enjoy- 
ment, their Admiral, his brother-officer, Sampson of 
the Cuban fleet, with Captain Evans. The Chairman 
of the United New York Board spoke the Address 
of Welcome. 

A last word on this famous ship : sent to Boston 
to be repaired, she went out of commission, but she 
will ride the deep again, yet farther to carry the 
^' four stars " of Dewey. 

" Columbia is the Ocean-Queen, and she standeth stanch 

and true, 
With Dewey for her cutlass keen, and her buckler 

Jackets blue ! " 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE FRIDAY. — THE NATIONAL REGATTA. — THE PAN- 
ORAMA. — AVERY SPECIAL SALUTE. — ^' HAIL TO 
THE FLAG ! " — ON TO WASHINGTON. 

Friday was another slice out of the Indian sum- 
mer which rejoiced the sightseers. 

The thousand members of the Civic Committee 
who came down to the Narrows to greet the national 

12 



1/8 THE LIFE AND CAREER ] 

guest had no need of overcoats as they backed up their 
Mayor, who made a welcoming speech to the com- 
mander of the Olyinpia on her deck. As he could 
not shake hands with that number without the lame 
shoulder which he soon afterwards experienced, he 
distributed a few clasps and uttered more words which 
the hearers treasure. He replied instantly to their 
call by going upon their steamer, the Sandy Hook, 
to sit at a luncheon worthy of Knickerbocker's town 
where good cheer has always reigned, as witness 
'* cookies^' and '' crullers." The police boat Petrel, 
not the little vessel so gallant at Manila, transferred 
him to his own ship, on which, alone almost, he was 
to preside over the Water Parade. 

His guests were very limited here, only his son, the 
respected widow of Captain Gridley, who was fre- 
quently cheered, and one or two old personal friends. 
These walked up and down the after-bridge until the 
anchor was raised and the war-ship started for the 
cruise to Grant's Tomb. 

The fleets were composed of boats of all kinds be- 
longing to the city, fire, police, etc., yachts, large 
steamboats, those massive tugs which are the pride 
of the harbor, four or five of those "demons of the 
sea — " the torpedo boats — excursion boats of every 
stripe, a dozen or so of saucy revenue cutters, the 
Navy having let all attend which could be spared, 
and celebrated battle-ships, the Neiv York, Indiana, 
Brooklyn, Massachusetts, Chicago, and others with 
names familiar in everybody's mouth. 

The Olymjna was the more easily picked out among 
them as they were painted yellow while she was still 
white. 

The start was made at one o'clock p. m. 

The police boats preceded by a little to clear the 
way of the swarming small craft, which spoils the 
yacht races and everything else by intrusion. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1^9 

More effectual, the fire-boats came np and poured 
immense spouts of water on interferers, which caused 
them to retire, dekiged. 

Those who saw the tremendous display of war 
engines at the Queen's Jubilee Eeview may have 
seen more vessels, but nothing equaled the gather- 
ing since Xerxes collected his galleys or they rammed 
one another at Actium. The variety was bewilder- 
ing, and the names of the craft would make a list 
longer than Homer's " List of the Ships." Besides, 
the world has no harbor like New York's for a parade 
of maritime masterpieces. The noble Hudson River 
can bear navies without their fouling. 

The shores form a dress-circle for five or six miles 
where spectators can see all the evolutions. If 
hundreds of thousands peered at the aquatic pro- 
cession from the craft, a couple of million looked on 
from the shore and piled the roofs of those tall edifices 
of which Chicago and this city bear the burden. 

One thing literally struck everybody — the up- 
roar of voice, cannon, steam whistles and inde- 
scribable instruments which beat pandemonium. 
Naval officers said it was worse than the din of 
battle. 

_ The speed was eight knots, and the warships kept 
right on with no slowing or stopping. 

The Admiral was busy bowing to the pleasure- 
seekers whose boats ran as near as permitted and 
tried by all devices to draw attention each on him- 
self. He was much amused at the odd floats with 
their odd passengers, decked out with Dewey medals, 
colors, trinkets. One in particular brought a hearty 
laugh — it was the Ox, a dumpy lighter with a top- 
heavy crane, on which, like Dutch reefers taking in 
sail, some boys daringly swung. 

^^ Just see the Ox!'' exclaimed the merry center 
of' all this gala ; '' she beats them all ! '■' 



l80 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

And the sturdy Ox got the most agreeable smile of 
all that turned out in his honor. 

He sllowed almost a boyish glee in showing to his 
son and intimates the badge the City had given him. 

''Is it not beautiful? " he said. 

From all the moving vessels came music, cheers, 
song and waving of colors. A photograph in 
natural colors would be like a scene from fairyland. 

The view sternwards of the packed thousands on 
the piers, wharf-sheds, buildings in tiers from the 
waterside to the tops of the giants at the Park, not 
a window unfilled, not a perch on the soaring cor- 
nices untenanted — this held him spell-bound. 

This outburst of gratitude, of patriotism and 
adoration came from no '' pent-up Utica," but from 
the entire Fifty States — from California to the Gulf, 
from Maine to New Mexico. 

The antique emperors, looking over the amphi- 
theater heaped with minions, satraps, generals, slaves 
and subjects, saw nothing, in their climax, like to 
this lofty spectacle — these were freemen holding up 
their hand to another freeman whom chance had 
chosen to stand in the breach where all else would 
have thronged in the same cause — defense of country. 

He was not tired this day on the waters. 

He saw every little thing. Three or four times 
he called for his marine-glass to define a detail. When 
the squadron went majestically by, he stood at the 
salute, not rigid, but supple as though a young cap- 
tain asrain. He issued his orders in a voice unnerved 
by this warm inundation of applause. At 131st 
Street, beside the stake boat, the St. Mari/s train- 
ing ship, was the old IT. S. Frigate Portsmouth , 
built in 1840, so that there may have been grizzled 
officers in this parade who had been apprentices 
aboard her. 

As the Oli/mjna turned round the training-ship, 



OF ADMIkAL DEWEY. igl 

Dewey smiled upon the boys in their neat suits and 
set the cue for them to be cheered, while the ancient 
sliip received part of the salute. 

The men-of-war anchored here, and the column 
went down stream between them and the New York 
shore. They had come up along the Jersey shore, 
where a pretty incident occurred. 

Our readers will remember, in the early pages 
about our hero's boyish life, how he had a conflict 
with a scliool-teacher who was instrumental in form- 
ing his future. 

Mr. Pangborn, living in Jersey City, turned out to 
fire a salute as his former pupil should pass. From 
the school-desk to the quarter-deck of a flag-ship, 
what a rise ! Then the boy had snowballed him ; 
now he was firing blank cartridge on him ! Then 
the old dominie repeated to the crowd, as the battle- 
ship sailed by under their eyes (his own moisten- 
ing):^ 

'TU tell you what Dewey said when he came 
home, as a young officer. He said to me : ' I shall 
never cease to be grateful. You made a man of me. 
But for that thrashing you gave me, 1 might have 
ended in the State prison ! " 

So the boys who heard him went away, glad in the 
future to get a whipping — how could one become a 
hero but for the same treatment ? 

From the Olym^na, anchored up stream, it seemed 
that the passage to land might be made though two 
miles in distance, by stepping from one head to an- 
other of the passengers on those boats, so closely were 
they retiring, as if moored together. 

^ Those who lingered saw the most tender of pat- 
riotic sights. 

_ When our flag is lowered at dusk at a military sta- 
tion or on a national defender, the commanding 
.officer gives the example in saluting the colors. 



l82 THfi LIFE AND CAREER 

There he was on the bridge, his eyes on the flag 
descending, and his hand, which had curbed Spain 
as a rider curbs a bronco, touching his hat in rever- 
ence. He owed all this homage to his defense of 
that flag ! 

Long after the pleasure-boats had borne away their 
cargoes towards their lodgings, he remained on the 
deck to see the fireworks. They were even more 
splendrous than yesterday's, and still, on the water, 
the yachts could be seen glorious in electric lights. 

The next day he spent in rest ; and on Sunday, 
without any notification to the press, eager to keep 
tally of his every steji, he went unobserved to a 
church in Harlem, where, in his plain clothes, al- 
most none recognized him. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE WASHIXGTOX RECEPTION. — THE HOME FROM THE 
PEOPLE. — ITS HOSTESS EXPECTANT. — VERMONT 
WELCOME. — LAYING THE STONE OF DEWEY HALL. 

For quite a month, they had been making ready 
in the National Capital to receive the victor in what 
Captain Mahan designates the " greatest naval battle 
on record." 

He stayed at an apartment-house where he had 
previously resided, but soon entered the mansion of 
Mrs. Washington McLean, to whose daughter was 
attached an old tale that she was the Admiral's flame, 
not by any means extinct. 

From his former residence at Washington, his time 
was fully occupied with renewing old friendships, 
especially as he was expected to permanently dwell 
here in the near future. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 



183 



Delegations came from all sides to beg him to pay 
their homes a visit ; letters of every description 
poured in to task his secretary, and he had official 
calls to make. 

He received an ovation at the U. S. Old Soldiers' 
Home, where he said that he had never learned to 
appreciate " the American soldiers' true valor and 




SWORD OF HONOR VOTED TO ADMIRAL DEWEY BY CONGRESS. 

noble qualities until he had seen them fight in the 
Philippines." 

He lunched at the Metropolitan Club with Professor 
Schurman of the Philippine Commission, to which 
he is attached in order to give it the benefit of his 
experience and advice. With Eear- Admiral Farqu- 
har, successor of Admiral Sampson, he strolled out 



l84 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

to the Navy Department near which he was recog- 
nized and hailed by a gathering crowd, although 
*' in mufti," that is, citizen's dress. 

He merrily excused himself from shaking hands 
with old acquaintances, as his arm was sore from 
hand-shaking in New York. 

On the road to the White House, he was inter- 
rupted by throngs of women and of school-children 
for whom he had a wave of the hand or a smile. 

At the Presidential mansion he was closeted for an 
hour with the Chief Executive ; their conference was 
on the Asian Question, and the outcome a swift de- 
spatch of men-of-war and more troops to the seat of 
strife. Senator Hanna had the ill-luck to call dur- 
ing this confabulation, but turned aside at hearing 
what an important dialogue he was interrupting. 

At a stand before the Treasury, Dewey reviewed 
the procession in his honor ; he received from the 
President the sword of honor voted by Congress. 
The Admiral had postponed the date of a desired 
visit to Chicago, but the President entreated him 
to go thither in company on the Presidential Western 
tour. This was declined with some embarrassment. 
The fact of the matter was, whatever the press in- 
ferred erroneously, that a more tender engagement 
was in progress : the Admiral had made one to 
marry ! 

For some time, it had been determined that the 
most agreeable present for the Union^s favorite son 
would be a home. So a subscription was rapidly cir- 
culated and 150,000 was raised to find him a house, 
or a site on which to build one, at Washington. 

Consulted, he preferred to have a dwelling already 
built, and ^' the Fitch House " was selected and ap- 
proved by the future occupier. It is a brick house 
with brown stone trimmings, on Rhode Island Ave- 
nue, in the heart of the social center. The furniture 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 185 

was *^ thrown into the bargain '' by the owner on 
learning who would be the real purchaser. Through- 
out the States, manufacturers of furniture, uphol- 
stery and the like vied with each other to perfect the 
interior. New stables will be erected, with accom- 
modations for ^'i\mt Dewey lion'Mvhich the Euro- 
peans {vide Sir Henry Irving) believe struts by his 
side in his walks abroad ! 

The twenty rooms making too extensive an abode 
for a bachelor, all were glad that it would have a 
mistress known to the community and certain to 
grace the board. 

Admiral Dewey will wed Mrs. Hazen, daughter of 
Mrs. McLean. This explained the rejection by the 
Admiral of the President's invitation to the Western 
Tour : he could hardly join a caravan more or less 
directed against the election of Mr. McLean — so near 
and dear to his hostess and his wife-to-be. 

Politics form a mighty engine, but when Cupid 
thrusts a spoke betwixt the wheels of the Juggernaut 
it must come to a standstill. 

In acknowledging the gift of his countrymen, 
Dewey said his heart was full of gratitude for such 
regard. 

The honeymoon, therefore, is reasonably supposed 
to have more to do in canceling his engagements to 
visit various places than the plea of fatigue after so 
much " lionizing." 

Tired with his Washington week, the Admiral, 
after a quiet Sabbath, when his son and he attended 
St. John's Church, once containing his pew, traveled 
north in the palace-car Victory, owned by tlie man- 
ager of the Wagner Car Co., now amalgamated with 
the Pullman. He went through New York asleep ; 
and thence by the West Shore to Albany, for Ver- 
mont. A card to view the International Yacht race 
from Lipton's tender, the Ermj had to be declined. 



1 86 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

As the day went on, the news spread of the passage, 
and guns were fired at the crossings. At other 
points, crowds concentrated to cheer and wave flags. 
Sitting in the observation car, he saw the unrivaled 
sceuery of the Hudson and marked these plentiful 
evidences of the uncooling popular ardor. 

His companions were his son, the Governor of 
Vermont, and Dr. Seward Webb, railroad magnate 
and millionaire, whose guest he was to be at the re- 
nowned stock farm of Shelburne. 

At the station he was met by one of the scores of 
traps. He was driven over typical Vermont country 
until he reached the stately entrance to the estate, 
with its porters' lodges on either side, as in the Old 
Country. 

There is no finer country drive than that through 
the grounds to Shelburne House, a distance of four 
miles. The farms comprise nearly 4,000 acres, 2,000 
of which are cleared. The roadway is of stone and 
beautifully laid out. 

Shelburne House itself is on a ridge that over- 
looks the estate and Lake Champlain. It is a long, 
rambling Queen Anne structure and very beautiful. 
It contains more than sixty rooms, and an addition 
is building which will make it the largest country 
house in America. The rooms are fitted in costly 
woods, with great fireplaces. It is heated by steam 
and lighted with electricity. 

Shelburne Farms is a complete community in it- 
self. It has its own fire department ; its own electric 
and power plant for the whole estate. It has va- 
rious shops. The water supply is sufficient for a 
town. 

Dr. Webb has long been famous as a breeder of 
driving horses. The great farm barn has a ring 
378 feet long and 85 feet wide where the blooded 
horses can be exercised in winter. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 8/ 

The greenhouses are the largest and finest on any 
private estate in America, and especially rich in rare 
plants. Much attention is given to violets and gar- 
denias. 

From hence, Admiral Dewey arrived in Montpelier 
at 5 :20 o'clock on the 11th October. From Shelburne 
to the capital, at all the small towns along the route, 
crowds turned out to cheer the Admiral as the train 
whizzed past. As Dewey's car was backed into the 
depot in ^lontpelier thousands of people swarmed the 
tracks. The Admiral stej)ped out upon the rear plat- 
form and lifted his hat in acknowledgment of the 
Avelcome at the hands of his townspeople. 

'' Ah, these are Vermonters ! " he said. It plainly 
showed that the welcome given to him by the people 
of his own State was dearer to him than that of all 
of his other countrymen. 

Dewey stood looking over the crowd searching for 
familiar faces. Suddenly he pointed at a man in 
the crowd : '' There's George Goodwin," he said. 
'' Sure enough, that's Goodwin. There's the old 
insurance building." (His father's institution.) 

'' Hello, here is Edward. Edward, how are you, 
brother ? Say, Edward, you will have to make a 
speech to these good people. Come, make a few re- 
marks." 

Edward Dewey could not make a speech. The 
crowd was convulsed with laughter as the two broth- 
ers shook hands. 

" Welcome home, George. You cannot imagine 
how happy we all are to see you," Edward replied, 
as the Admiral assisted him up the steps of the plat- 
form. 

" A speech, a speech! " cried a thousand men. 

" Gentlemen," said the Admiral, '' I am no speech- 
maker. I could not make a speech." 

" That's no joke. Admiral ; but yon can fight to 



1 88 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

beat the band/' yelled a small boy. Shaking with 
laughter, Dewey vanished from the platform. 

When only a few remained about the train, Dewey 
started down State Street toward the home of his 
brother, Edward, who accompanied him, leaning 
upon his arm for support. The Admiral was pre- 
ceded by Adjutant-General Peck, of the Vermont 
National Guard, who cleared a path through gather- 
ing throngs with his sheathed sword. 

'' Look over there, George," said Edward Dewey, 
pointing to the Montpelier pavilion. In great let- 
ters of fire were the words, ^' Welcome, Dewey.'' 

'^ It is all grand — magnificent ! " Dewey remarked. 

Edward Dewey's home is opposite the State House, 
and here the Admiral stopped and bowed again to the 
crowd before he entered. A few minutes later tliey 
were joined by George G. Dewey, the iVdmiral's son, 
Charles Dewey, another brother of the Admiral, and 
other members of the Dewey family. Dinner was 
served with no one outside of the family at the table. 

The Admiral said that he was delighted with his 
reception in Montpelier and that he hoped the 
weather would be fine. " I will be glad when the 
celebration is over," he said ^' for I am very tired." 

It was exhilarating to mingle with the crowd : the 
elders overflowed with reminiscences of their dis- 
tinguished fellow-citizen, and the young ones listened 
agape or stared at the object of all this enthusiasm 
and eulogy. 

Many a finger pointed tremulously at the house 
where *^ our" Dewey was born : an old colonial house 
moved from its first site. Out of its gates, !Mrs. Dr. 
Dewey used to emerge in a low-swung carriage not 
unlike a heavier Victoria, which caused the spectators 
of the equipage and the solid horses in silver-plated 
caparisons to say : 

*' Here comes the Queen in her coach ! " 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 1 89 

Graybeards spoke of swimming in the " Inion " at 
a pool where George beat the band by " staying under 
water the longest ! '^ 

^' He was jes' a born, nateral athlete, that Dewey 
lad, and on the Meetin' day of the Legislator, when all 
the youngsters used to compete out thar' on the 
green in all kinds ofrastlin' and pulley-haulins, that 
boy would floor every mortal son ! " 

Some hummed the musty song by Dibdin, which 
used to make our gran'thers' eyes water, '' The Son 
of a Tar,'' and affirmed that it was a favorite of 
Dewey's and had turned his head seaward. 

One old merchant, who had been a schoolmate of 
his, related that once when the boy had proclaimed 
his ambition to travel the world over and make ac- 
quaintance with the rulers of Europe— the witty 
teacher had flourished Ms ruler of ebony, and cried : 
" There is one American ruler you will make the 
acquaintance of before you do of them ! " 

And all laughed ! The Yankee does not laugh 
oftenor for long, but when he does you can hear him ! 
So it was all mirth at Montpelier over the prodigal's 
return, glittering with glory ! 

Old ministers who ought to have been less excited 
over a man of war repeated Dr. Dewey's advice to his 
son, like to Polonius' : 

''Never fight ; but— when you do, fight your utter- 
most ! " 

More easily recalled Dewey's visit in '84, when 
his mustache was dark, not snowy, and he looked stern 
under his bushy brows so that the little ones to whom 
he was always tender, shrank at the first from him 
until he had time to win their hearts. Then he was 
'' Uncle Captain " to them ; they were mothers of 
families now, and to those duplicates of themselves 
were reciting these anecdotes. 
After the day at home, among his near connections, 



igO THE LIFE AND CAREER • 

was a public day, garnished with reviews, the largest 
procession ever known in the Green Mountain State, 
choruses of school-children whose sweet voices affected 
him to the core, '' Salutes to the Flag," presentation 
of the State keepsake, his likeness jeweled with dia- 
monds, and in the evening fireworks, including a bon- 
fire of a pyramid of tar-barrels fifteen layers high, 
the blaze of which threw into the shade the illumi- 
nation of the State House dome. Montpelier has a 
normal population of eight thousand — it contained 
fifty thousand Vermonters who simply went cranky 
with patriotic delirium. 

The salute was fired from two guns recovered from 
the Castilla, one of those Spanish vessels sunk in 
Manila Bay. 

At midnight, when the last reveler had hardly 
more than retired from the rare festival, the Ad- 
miral and his select party left Montpelier, and, in 
the morning, awoke at Xorthfield, to the roar of 
seventeen guns, an Admiral's salute, fired by the 
cadets of the University, where he spent three years 
(1851-1854), before piissing _ on to the Annapolis 
Xaval Academy. In 1898 this institution conferred 
on ''our Chevalier Bayard of the Xavy '' (says Com- 
modore Stratton) the" degree of B. S. for '' honor- 
able cause." 

His " nursing mother," Norwich (since, Xorth- 
field) Military Academy (now a University), trained 
for the military profession as well as for higher 
education. 

Founded in 1819, at the close of our War with 
Great Britain, when it was proven that we were 
without preparation for officering the troops, the 
West Point graduate. Captain Partidge, Avho was its 
superintendent, sent qualified juniors into the army 
in Mexico and, in the Civil War, its graduates were 
numerous enough for a company by themselves. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I9I 

Their names were set upon the triumphant columns 
through which Dewey was conducted by the cadets, 
at the proper hour. In the interval, he stroUed 
about the town and made the acquaintance of its' 
chief citizens and renewed that of old friends flock- 
ing to the place. The University stands on rising 
ground, and the immense body of spectators could 
see the prominent guests arrive for the exercises of 
laying the corner-stone, bv Dewey's own hand. In 
May last, the turf had been cut by Captain Clark, of 
the celebrated circumnavigating cruiser Oregon. _ 

^^ Vermont's greatest son" laid the stone in a 
workmanlike manner, ''according to his wish.-" 
This was a boulder brouglit here in olden times by 
the glacial wave, and was set on another from the 
old school at Norwich. 

The new edifice is to be of native granite, in classi- 
cal stvle, the elevation attained by a hall with ro- 
tunda. In the center is to be a Dewey statue. 

The orator of the day was Senator Depew, who is 
almost the mouthpiece of America— or, at ^ least, 
the Europeans whom he enchants, esteem him so. 
Chauncey M. Depew, then, made one of his most 
happy efforts, almost in the shade of an elm-tree 
under which the delinquent students have to march 
in full marching order, musket on shoulder ! It is 
not said that our hero had to do so, but it is feared, 
as he certainly is the typical American, who is 
always the '' worst boy in school." 

The text of this speech might have been Gover- 
nor Goodwin's sibylline utterance upon his son-in- 

'' Dewey is full of grit and honesty, and will be 
heard of one of these days ! " . . - 

During the impressive ceremony, a painting of 
the Olyinpia was exhibited and presented to her 
commander. 



192 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Throughout the sunny day the guest was escorted 
by the proud cadets, to whom he was a vivid ex- 
ample. 



CHAPTER XXL 

SENATOR DEPEW'S ADDRESS TO ADMIRAL DEWEY, AT 
KORTHFIELD, YERMOXT, OCTOBER 13, 1899. 

'' Admiral Dewey, Governor and Legislators; 
Gentlemen of the Faculty, and Students : The 
greetings and applause which accompanied Admiral 
Dewey around the world, the welcome and triumphal 
processions of his grateful countrymen, the imposing 
ceremonies at the National Capital and the capital 
of his native State, have their fitting close at the 
University where the foundations of his fame were 
laid. He returns from his victories to his Alma 
Mater and lays his laurels upon her shrine. ' Here 
precept and example, teaching and tradition, made 
the man. The home-coming of the alumnus during 
commencement days to the University is always an 
interesting incident in his life, but when he comes 
back crowned with glory and honor to acknowledge 
his debt, the old college has fresh inspiration for her 
sons. 

dewey's early ambition. 

" Forty-five years ago a young man was graduated 
from here and entered the Naval Academy at Anna- 
polis. At this institution he had found the bent of 
his mind and decided upon his career. The allure- 
ments of commerce and fortune did not tempt him. 
The pathways of the professions and industrial pre- 
ferment which attracted most of the youth of America 
had no charms for young Dewey. To win his way 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I93 

in the service of his country was his ambition. The' 
period of his active life is the most wonderful half 
century in the history of the world. It is the era 
of invention, of discovery, of the utilization of the 
forces of nature to the service of mankind. The 
rapid evolution and development of the arts and in- 
dustries have piled up gigantic fortunes for the able, 
far-sighted and adventurous. The contention and 
competition for great wealth have absorbed the best 
talent and the vital energies of the people. The hot 
race for money has drawn the strongest from every 
walk in life. To get rich has seemed to foreign and 
domestic observers the sole teachings of our schools, 
and its rewards of luxury and power the most satis- 
factory attainments. 

'^ After nearly fifty years George Dewey is again 
upon the old campus and treading these venerable 
halls possessed of little more of accumulated wealth 
than when he left. His gift to his college far sur- 
passes the value of endowments and buildings. It 
is the example for all time of the Norwich student, 
who, without influence or assistance, by his stead- 
fastness, pluck and genius, became 

THE HERO OF THE AMERICAN" NAVY 

and the conqueror of a new world for his country. 

'^ This day is an influence in breaking the spell of 
gross materialism which binds the closing year of 
the nineteenth century. It opens for the twentieth 
nobler aims and higher ideals. The ingenuous youth 
can see that comfort, happiness and fame are pos- 
sible in art and letters, in the service of humanity 
and the service of the country. We are to become 
broader and more liberal in our associations. Wealth 
is to find that it is honored by artists, statesmen, 
jurists, men and women of letters^ educators and 

13 



194 



THE LIFE AND CAREER 



officers of the army and navy being invited to partici- 
pate in the social opportunities which money gives. 
The pleasures of the fortunate are to be enormously 
enriched by the presence of achievement and genius 
from many departments under hospitable roofs. 

THE CHARACTERISTIC OF OUR TIME 

is the equal struggle for social position and material 
gain. There is, unfortunately, a widespread belief 
that society recognizes only people of large incomes 
and lavish expenditures. Let the barriers of exclu- 
siveness be lowered for the worthy and cultured, 
for those distinguished in public life and the profes- 
sions, for talent which adds to the improvement, 
enjoyment and education of the people, and the 
ambitions of the student will see other careers than 
the congested avenues of trade or the perils of specu- 
lation. 

FORTUNE CAME LATE. 

*' The life of Admiral Devmj is a manual for the 
young American. It demonstrates that work and 
thoroughness are the essentials of success. Oppor- 
tunity — or accident, if you please — happens to every 
one. If ready, he seizes upon it and his career is 
made. If unprepared, it passes by and rarely re- 
turns. General Grant was an excellent cadet, and in 
the Mexican campaign mastered the art of war. 
His talent was for the tented field, and not the pur- 
suits of peace. He was a poor farmer and a worse 
tanner. At forty the opportunity came and found 
him ready. Faithful preparation made him com- 
mand success, and with the fall of the Confederacy 
the world recognized the foremost soldier of the 
age. 

'' Lincoln became President at fifty-one. He met 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. IQS 

and triumphantly solved the most difficult problems 
ever presented to an American President. But by 
a quarter of a century of patient labor in Legislature 
and Congress, in his study and in Titanic debate, he 
had mastered all the questions which were to be de- 
cided during the periods of civil war and reconstruc- 
tion. Admiral Dewey was sixty before fortune 
confronted him. 

''He left this University with honor. He had a 
creditable record at the Military Academy at Anna- 
polis. He did daring and brilliant deeds on the 
Mississippi and learned invaluable lessons under that 
grand old naval hero of the Civil War, Admiral Far- 
ragut. At sea and on land, on his ship and in the 
Navy Department at Washington, with resistless en- 
ergy and intelligent work, he became known as the 
most thorough and able officer in both the theory 
and practise of naval warfare. The idle days, the 
wasted hours, the health-wrecking dissipations which 
account for most of the failures in a career were never 
the experience of this enthusiast in his profession. 
He had no faith in luck or chance, or accident or 
genius. He believed in work. His ideals were to 
have a great opportunity and be so thoroughly 
equipped for every contingency that fate must sur- 
render to preparation. 

WHAT LED TO VICTORY. 

''The threescore milestone was behind and the 
retiring limit near when Commodore Dewey was 
placed in command of the Asiatic Squadron. A 
message was received at Hong Kong from the Secre- 
tary of the Navy that war had broken out with 
Spain, and the Commodore must at once go to sea 
and find and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet. 
Edward Everett Hale's story of the man without a 



IQO THE LIFE AND CAREER 

country has interested generations of readers. With 
Commodore Dewey were the fascinating possibilities 
and perils of a fleet without home or port. He was 
6,000 miles from the United States, and the neutral- 
ity laws closed for him friendly harbors, and needed 
supplies were contraband of war. 

'^ Manila was the fortified harbor of the enem}^ and 
in it were the warships of Spain. Its channels were 
mined, its forts manned wdth modern guns, and the 
Spanish fleet was superior in numbers and ordnance. 
But there were the harbor he wanted, the supplies 
he required, the shij)s he was ordered to capture or 
destroy. During a week of great anxiety for his 
countrymen we only knew that the Commodore was 
sailing over the Pacific Ocean seeking his mission. 
On the seventh day the world was electrified by the 
message that he had destroyed the Spanish fleet, and 
Manila was at his mercy. The splendor of the 
achievement and the completeness of the victory 
were the result of that thoroughness of plan and de- 
tail whose habit was formed within these walls, and 
that undisputed leadership in his profession won by 
eager devotion to its study and the grasp and use of 
progress and invention. The fogy becomes a bar- 
nacle, but Dewey is always up-to-date — often ahead. 

THE TRIAL PERIOD. 

" The trial period of a successful commander is 
after the battle. Then his w^isdom and capacity 
have their supreme test. Diplomacy must veil the 
gun. Grant's terms to Lee after Appomattox sur- 
passed his victories. In the Bay of Manila were the 
fleets of the great Powers of Europe. All but one 
were hostile or jealous of the Eepublic of the West, 
whose startling advent might compel a rearrange- 
ment of their plans for the division of the East. On 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I97 

shore were the Spanish army, to be held in check 
until troops conic! arrive from America, and insur- 
gent forces with wild and passionate eagerness to 
execute vengeance upon their oppressors by fire and 
sword and rapine. The sole responsibility for the 
control of the situation rested with Commodore 
Dewey. Foreign Admirals were kept within bounds 
by firmness which meant force. The Spanish army 
surrendered. The natives respected the wishes of a 
victor whom they feared and of a wise friend whom 
they learned to love. Commissioned to capture a 
fleet, he had conquered an empire for his country. 
'^ His task completed, he sails for home. 

THE TKIUMPHAL HOMECOMIKG. 

'^ There is no parallel in history of this triumphal 
march. As his ship carries his flag more than half 
way around the globe, he is greeted at every port in 
every country with the honors due the naval hero of 
our time. He is met as he enters the superb gate- 
way of our land at New York by the loving welcome 
of 70,000,000 of his countrymen. On bay and river 
our warships, our merchant marine, and our pleas- 
ure yachts dip their pennants and pass in review. 

'' The Statue of Liberty illumines harbor and shore 
with the brilliancy of her greeting to the worthiest 
of her exemplars and apostles. The procession 
escorting him through the streets of the metropolis 
is not a Roman triumph with the spoils of subju- 
gated peoples and with captives chained to the 
chariot wheels of the conqueror. The cheering 
millions along the route voice the acclaim of the 
whole people for the American who has done so 
much for his country, and the sailor whose deeds 
have given greater luster to our navy, whose record 
has always been illustrious. The presentation of the 



198 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

sword voted by Congress by the President of the 
United States in the presence of the Cabinet, the Su- 
preme Court, the Senate, and the House of Eepre- 
sentatives at the Capitol was the crowning glory of 
this marvelous ovation. 

" Not yet its culmination and its lesson ; not yet. 
That is reserved for his Alma Mater. I saw Grant 
from Appomattox and Sherman from the march to 
the sea at West Point. There was an affectionate 
significance in the welcome and approval of the 
old Academy which no pageant could give. The 
splendors of the decorations, the brave array of 
saluting soldiers and sailors have passed ; the echoes 
of the guns and strains of martial music have died 
away. AVith the associations and surroundings of 
this seat of learning the Faculty and students receive 
their fellow student and honored alumnus. The 
building which will arise upon the corner-stone now 
laid by Admiral Dewey will remain for unnumbered 
generations as a monument to the advantages of a 
liberal education and the possibilities of American 
citizenship. 

THE FRUIT OF VICTORY. 

'* The benefits of a college course are not all found 
in text-books, lectures and the library. They are 
the tools for use in practical life, but can be had 
outside of the university. The contact and attrition 
of ingenuous minds seeking the truth break tlie 
fetters of prejudice and provincialism, and cultivate 
the cosmopolitan spirit which is necessary for suc- 
cess at this time when the telegraph brings all the 
world in daily communication. To learn where and 
how to find quickly the history, facts, cases and 
subjects required is liberal learning. The impress 
of great teachers upon susceptible youth is felt in 
nobler aims and purer ideals all through life. But 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. I99 

the inspiration of living, breathing and working 
where the famous among the Alumni were college 
boys is of incalculable value. Their spirits are ever 
present in rooms and halls, at recitations, and on 
the campus. Every university man echoes Kip- 
ling^s sentiment : 

" Bless and praise we famous men — 
Men of little showing ! 
For their work continueth, 
' And their w^ork continueth, 

Broad and deep continueth, 
Great beyond their knowing." 

"The victory of Admiral Dewey has a far wider 
significance than the heroism of the fight. It opened 
a new chapter in the history of the United States. 
The lifting of the cloud of battle-smoke from the 
waters of Manila Bay revealed a new and potential 
power in the affairs of the world. The class which 
graduates here next June enters upon a larger citizen- 
ship than any of its predecessors. A war begun by 
the United States for humanity and liberty ended in 
the conquest and cession of a rich and populous terri- 
tory in the East. At the very hour when our indus- 
trial development and surplus productions demand 
the benefit of expanding markets, we become by the 
Providence of God 

NEIGHBOR TO THE ORIENT 

and its limitless possibilities. After three hundred 
years of oppression and spoliation by the Spaniards, 
after centuries of promises made to be broken, the in- 
habitants of the Philippine Islands distrust all profes- 
sions. The good faith with which we are fulfilling 
onr pledges in Cuba will ultimately become known in 
every island in the archipelago. The Gem of the 



200 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

Antilles is feeling the thrill of liberty. Under the 
beneficent rule of law and order she is experiencing 
peace, prosperity and progress. We are leading her 
to independence as the mother does her child, and 
at each more confident step we loosen our firm but 
affectionate hold for her education and safety. 

FUTURE OF THE PHILIPPINES. 

*' We must first subdue the rebellion. The more 
quickly, the more energetically and the more over- 
whelming the force with which it is done, the more 
merciful will be the war and the earlier will come 
the regeneration of the Philippines. The demon- 
stration for a brief period of a Government which 
gives protection to life and property, which grants 
liberty and law, which plants schoolhouses and en- 
courages thrift, will be conditions for happiness they 
have never experienced and only vaguely imagine 
possible through the anarchy they would now inaug- 
urate. Manila, Santiago and San Juan have won 
the respect of Europe for our fighting qualities, but 
our statesmanship and staying powers are on trial in 
every Cabinet in the Old World. When civil and 
religious liberty was in peril before the united assault 
of all the great monarchs of the Continent, William 
of Orange, in undertaking their defense, registered 
the simple oath, 

' I WILL MAINTAIN.' 

His was a gigantic task against frightful odds. We 
are for the time being the custodians of civilization 
in our new possessions against a foe whose defeat is 
inevitable, and for a people who, released from the 
thrall of savage leaders and brought under the in- 
fluences of peace, will become loyal and productive 
citizens. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 201 

" Pride in one's State is like love for the old home- 
stead. The absorbing duties of his later life and 
tremendous events in which he has been so distin- 
guished an actor have never weakened the affection 
nor weaned the interest of Dewey from Vermont. 
His heart has been ever full of the simple lives and 
homely virtues of this staid old New England Com- 
monwealth. Her soil might not yield as rich returns 
to the husbandman as the prairie farms of the West, 
but her marble and granite have always furnished 
tombstones for her invaders and statues for her 
heroes. Forty years ago, standing as a young cadet 
in the Capitol at Montpelier and gazing upon the 
statue of Ethan Allen, he exclaimed : 

" 'Life can achieve no greater reward than that.' 
He has won that reward. Beside the hero of Ticon- 
deroga will stand a companion figure. Under the 
one will be the immortal words which began the first 
victory of our Revolutionary War : ' I demand your 
surrender in the name of the Great Jehovah and the 
Continental Congress,' and under the other, the 
statue of Admiral Dewey, the sentence which opened 
the gates of the Orient for his country : ' You may 
fire when you are ready, Gridley.'" 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE GRAVE TAiq-KEES BUBBLE OYER. — SPLENDOR ON" 
SPLENDOR. — THE FIGHT FOR REST. — ADDENDA TO 
THE TOAST. — THE MARITAL ENGAGEMENT. — THE 
HIGHEST GIFT IN OUR DISPOSAL. 

The Second City of the Atlantic seaboard was now 
to offer its tribute and swell the note of jubilee. 
From Northfield to that point, the special train 



202 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

ran on its own schedule so that everything was side- 
tracked as the ilhistrious passenger shot along. It 
was ever the same spontaneous blessing and congrat- 
ulating. Shots from old muzzle-loaders and blun- 
derbusses alternated with those from cannon that 
might have been in the Revolution. At some points, 
factory hands quitted the mills to line the depot 
platforms ; at others, students, as at Dartmouth — all 
were whooping and demoustrative. At each such 
spot the train slowed up or some one must have been 
crushed. In reply to the Dartmouth ''jeW/' the 
Admiral drolly remarked : '' You will own the 
country some day ! " 

AVhistles, *' buzzers " and bells sounded from mills 
and their innumerable windows were blocked up with 
the women and men hanging out with frenetic ap- 
plause. When he went through there, at the out- 
break of the Civil War, the sight was of another 
guise ; the windows blazed with gas, as the hands 
were toiling night and day making ammunition and 
arms for the approaching conflict. Better the happy 
faces and the smiling lips than those iron and brazen 
mouths of the war-dogs ! 

From Lowell to Boston, the tracks were hedged 
with people. 

The railroad station could not contain the swarms, 
twenty-five thousand within the walls and out-build- 
ings, with twice as many in the adjacent streets, 
craning and tiptoeing to catch a glimpse. When he 
came forth, he was almost carried off his feet, spite 
of police and soldiers. They wanted to '' chair " 
him, to shoulder him and bear him off to the Hotel 
Touraine, where he was to spend three days. 

To permit all to share in the duty, his escort was 
changed ; now it was the Veterans of the Civil W^^^ 
now those of the Navy, and then of the Spanish- 
American War. 



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OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 2O3 

The streets were profusely decorated, though not 
with the ensemble imposed on New York. At night, 
red and blue port-fire painted the sea of faces and 
draped house-fronts ; the Hall looked like a great 
bouquet, with its tapestry. 

On the Common, fireworks were displayed so that 
the Admiral could see their splendor from his own 
windows. 

The next day he reviewed the whole of the State 
Militia, and a civic procession defiled before him. 
The City presented him with a jeweled keepsake, a 
$1,000 watch, with his likeness set with diamonds, 
appended to a chain, with locket and charm, all on 
a silver salver on which was engraved the Freedom 
of the City. There was also the ceremony of recep- 
tion of the colors of the regiments which had gone 
through the Cuban Campaign. 

There was a lunch at a millionaire's mansion. 

The Olympias crew were not omitted ; after figur- 
ing prominently in the march, they were dined at 
the State Armory. It was trite, but nobody was 
tired yet of hearing from their lips that the Admiral, 
although a disciplinarian, was reluctant to punish 
and tolerant to Jack's '"sky-larking." They were 
feasted '"chock-a-block !" 

In the streets, the Admiral's carriage was filled 
with posies ; and he found at his hotel all the rooms 
hampered with floral devices. At the club banquet 
in his name, no speeches were expected, but his 
health was drunk with heartiness. 

Again he was much affected by the grand choir of 
school-children singing, just as Lafayette and Gen- 
eral Moreau owned to the same feeling of weakness 
which youthful, innocent voices produce. 

^' It is the most refreshing sight ever seen ! " he 
remarked to Mayor Quincy. 

In the evening, not surfeited but regaled amply, 



204 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

he set out for tlie National Capital which, as his 
liouse was ready, was indefinitely his home. 

" 'Tis home where'er the heart is — where'er the loved 
ones dwell." 

A witticism went the rounds which chimed in 
with his sentiments r 

'^ Dewey has to fight harder here than in Manila ! " 
— '^ Fight ? What for ? ''—'' For rest ! " 

Here his friends were waiting for him, not sorry 
that he would go nowhere else, and repeating the 
encore verses which the author had added to the 
lines given out on the eve of his departure for the 
Asiatic seas : 

" Along the far Philippine coast, 
Where flew the flag of Spain, 
Our Commodore to-day can boast 
' 'Twill never fly again.' 

" And up from all our hills and vales, 
From city, town, and shore, 
A miglity shout the welkin hails : 
' Well done, brave Commodore ! ' 

"Now let your Admiral's pennant fly, 
You've won it like a man. 
Where heroes love to fight and die, 
Right in the battle's van." 

His mail had accumulated, but was rapidly lower- 
ing under the nimble hands of his secretaries, Cald- 
well and Brumby. With his return, the latter could 
be spared to go home, to Georgia, where he would 
represent his superior, and receive his own sword of 
honor. 

All appeals from the country that he might be 
farther seen by his fellow-countrymen were blocked 
by the Secretary of the Navy, Long, at the end of 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 205 

October, ordering the Admiral on special duty at 
the Department. 

The Philippine Commission was reassembling, 
and the Victor of Manila was indispensable for their 
decision and investigations. 

Besides, there was another reason for his wishing 
to stay in Washington and test the comfort of his 
house, — the national present. 

On the thirtieth of October the Admiral was at 
the Lafayette-Square Theater, with Major Ferguson, 
ex- Minister to Norway and Sweden, when he was 
pointed out as a Benedict no longer. 

It was at last authoritatively stated, by his nearest 
friends, that he was engaged to be married to Mrs. 
General W. B. Hazen, the widow of the noted signal 
service chief-officer of the IT. S. N. H® died about 
ten years ago, leaving a son who was killed by a fall 
from his horse, over a year since, which caused pro- 
found sorrow among the Hazen relatives and acquaint- 
ances. After that, the widow lived in retirement, 
at Washington, in one of her own houses, the hand- 
somest of the Capital, and in a charming country 
retreat near the city. 

The announcement was first made to ex-Secretary 
Herbert of the Navy and afterwards to the Congress- 
man who headed the Tennessee delegation praying 
Dewey to visit Nashville ; this prior engagement, of 
course, provided him with a conclusive excuse. 
I)ut the hailing him at the playhouse was a public 
avowal which delighted a wider audience. 

She is the daughter of Mrs. Washington McLean 
and sister of the Ohioan gubernatorial candidate 
(Democratic), and, since she laid aside her mourning- 
weeds, she has been the center of gaiety. 

Among the aspirants to her hand are cited General 
Schofield and General Corbin, but all these stories 
were at once dashed into shadow. 



2o6 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

The applause which had rung through the play- 
house was redoubled when Dewey was seen receiving 
the congratulations of the Cabinet officers who 
happened (?) to be present, and of his friends, as 
well known in society of all stripes, naval, military 
and political. 

Eear- Admiral Schley was among the first to enter 
the Dewey box, and was heartily cheered. 

The marriage will be performed by a high prelate 
of the Koman Catholic Church, of which Mrs. Hazen 
lately became a member. 

As Mrs. Hazen has always moved in the political 
atmosphere of Washington, and is understood to 
cherish lofty ambitions, the hope is revived that the 
Admiral will accept nomination for the Presidency. 
It is true that he has himself said that all his train- 
ing made him a sailor and not a politician, but what 
has that to do with it ? On the contrary, it will be 
a refreshing novelty to have a President after the 
precedent of Jackson, Taylor and Lincoln. 



CHAPTER XXn. 

OUR DIVERSIFIED HOLDINGS. — ABORIGINES AND 
THEIR RIVALS. — SULUS, IGORROTES AND TAGALS. 
— MEN VOWED TO KILL. — CONTESTED POLICY. — A 
FREE PHILIPPINES ! 

The touchstone which allows us to form a true 
judgment of Agninaldo, whether a Washington for 
his race or an Aaron Burr, would enable the whole 
future of the Philippines to be gauged and dealt 
with. Unfortunately, he has lately had no intimates 
of our kind. To speak of him as he is found, is im- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 20/ 

possible, since those who knew him at the com- 
mencement of our relations with him and had a good 
opinion of him have recanted or are silent from fear 
that they were deceived or that he has altered. 

Admiral Dewey must have thought fairly of him 
or never would he have armed him to beat off the 
Spanish land forces. 

At the outset of the Philippine "War, he was favor- 
able, and he comprehends the Orientals. He said 
that the Tagalo President behaved very honorably 
in the Spanish Pacification. General Whittier as- 
sures us that he refused money even for personal 
expenses when he was returning home to help the 
Americans. 

Our consuls who came in contact with him con- 
sidered him a real friend to our side. 

But, after six or eight months, the portrait 
changes. 

Admiral Dewey, towards the close of 1899, which 
means, his words are the fruit of reflection, says, 
decidedly — one may believe decisively : 

" The people of the Philippines are incapable of 
self-government. Aguinaldo and his self-seeking, 
scheming, conspiring followers must not be mistaken 
for great patriots who are fighting for their liberties. 
They must not be mentioned in the same breath with 
the founders of our own Republic. AmonVan pa- 
triots could not have been bribed with Bri ish gold 
as Aguinaldo was with Spanish money — hired to 
leave the country, hired to abandon their followers. 
Aguinaldo was. He is simply a self-seeker. His 
whole gang represents only a pitiful percentage of 
the Filipino population. 

'^ To deal with the rest of the Filipinos, then, by 
giving them peace, liberty and self-government, is im- 
possible (the Admiral thinks) for two reasons. First, 
because Aguinaldo is lying to them, and they believe 



208 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

liim rather than ns ; second, as long as he is making 
a guerrilla war it will be impossible for the United 
States to prove to the rest of the people its good in- 
tentions, even if it had them ; moreover, because the 
Filipinos, even those who are not fighting, refuse 
to accept promises. They have two hundred years of 
reason for refusing. Spain promised to them every- 
thing they wanted for two centuries and never gave 
them anything but oppression, falsehood and pillage. 
It must be understood, therefore, that it is utterly 
impossible to do anything with the Filipinos by 
promises. 

Acts, not words, are necessary. Until Aguinaldo 
and his irresponsible gang is crushed, it will be im- 
possible for the United States to deal directly with 
the Filipino people even to give them absolute 
freedom. 

" More force rather than less until Aguinaldo is 
crushed " is Admiral Dewey's keynote. Unless those 
leaders are routed within six months, he declares, 
the war may not end for six years, and perhaps not 
for sixty, for the rebellion may then spread to other 
tribes. But rightly managed, the campaign can be 
ended in a few weeks, wheu the fleet of nearly forty 
warships and an army of G5,000 men arrive there 
next month. After Aguinaldo is crushed, then 
enlightened government. ^' Treat the Filipinos 
honestly and kindly and let them do everything 
themselves." 

We must bear in mind that, while Aguinaldo was 
brought from Hong Kong in a government vessel 
to assist us in securing a hold over the Philippines, 
and " his assistance was then considered by the Ad- 
miral as valuable," he blames him for soon show- 
ing ^'^ the cloven hoof/' Dewey upholds truth above 
most moral qualities, and this half-Chinese, half- 
Malay, would have the weakness of both races in 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 209 

using falsehood to serve a purpose and even merely 
to be agreeable. 

Senator Pettigrew eulogizes him as a patriot and 
a hero, but then he has never seen him. 

General Funston has faced his followers and he 
estimates their leader as " shrewd but not clever. 
He circulates and corroborates all that the Junta 
sends out, and adds to it all that his cunning im- 
agination can devise. With him the campaign is a 
great confidence game. If his people could be in- 
duced to accept the truth of the situation, they would 
desert him to-morrow." Yet he seems to be deep, 
if not sincere, for he has had the son, born to him 
while waging warfare against his best friends, chris- 
tened with the name which most appeals to us — 
George Washington ! 

As the great Napoleon was willing to abdicate — 
when driven to the wall, in favor of his son, perhaps, 
this youth will afford a good opportunity for his papa 
to glide out of his thorny chair, carried on a litter 
from one jungle stand to another, and let him have 
the vacancy when he is of the age to be our liege 
man ! 

In September, 1899, the position of the Americans 
on Luzon Island might be thus summarized. 

We held over a hundred square miles out of the 
more than forty thousand occupied more or less 
forcibly by the insurrectionists. 

The railroad along which there has been skirmish- 
ing for half a year was ours, except that there were 
breaks from the rebels having torn up the sleepers, 
which, when not mahogany, were burnt ; in the 
other case, they buried them in the swamps where 
the heavy wood sank like oak in a bog ; the iron rails 
were similarly disposed of, or turned into corkscrews 
by heating in the same fires. Nevertheless, what 
we have of it, places under our armed hand several 
14 



210 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

provinces and makes the inhabitants neutral, for on 
us now depend their supplies. 

In the other islands we have reconnoitering parties, 
rather than forces of occupation ; thanks to feuds 
between the races making up the population, they 
may be played against each other while we hold what 
we do plant the flag upon. 

The coast towns captured by General Lawton, 
Hale, and others, but abandoned, are practically at 
our mercy as our light river-gunboats and steam- 
launches can shell them at any signs of treachery. 

The enemy are now driven into the foothills, with 
the mountains to escape into in event of a steady 
repulsing movement ; cavalry cutting them off from 
the lower lights, they should be followed by sharp- 
shooters and dislodged from every bivouac until 
sickened of their harassing tactics. 

In such small islands as Negros, the foes are peas- 
ants who take to arms in dull intervals, and are little 
more than banditti. Our regulars are here, but in 
little number ; putting down whatever number col- 
lect in a noticeable troop and dispersing them. ^ 

In repairing the railroad, the trains are furnished 
with a military escort ; when, therefore, the cars are 
fired upon by ambushed natives, these soldiers alight 
and rout out tlie hidden marksmen. The news is 
sent by telegraph to headquarters, and, if the attack 
is serious, reinforcements proceed to the rescue by a 
light train ; this sends the enemy fleeing. But the 
attacks were resumed next day, since our troops were 
outnumbered, until of late. 

There is an absence of forts in the new districts 
overrun ; in our new possessions, there are no solid 
buildings fit to endure the earthquakes now and then 
disturbing this Eden, but the churches and convents, 
with their strong high walls, a few government 
structures, generally old and crumbling ; the native 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 



211 



houses outside of the city, are very flimsy. There- 
fore, following the practise of the'spanisli and the 
natives, the abandoned churches, long- since stainpH 
with blood, and therefore desecrated, are ued as 
strongholds ^ e must understand this so that - our 
boys should not be accused wildly of irreverence 
In answer to an inquiry from home, the commandei- 
telegraphed that only sixteen churches were occupied 
by U S. troops ; ten of them having been taken 
from the enemy ; three monasteries, also, thus held 
as citadels, were likewise desecrated by the insur- 
gents before we expelled them. 

wl'' f^-u^'^fv' f ''^^' noticeable in the Peninsular 
Wai^ of Wellington and A^apoleon's marshals for 
fepam IS a most Catholic country, to occupy churches 
is a matter of course in warfare. 

The improvement in the choice troops surrounding 
Agumaldo is now explained by stating that they are 
mercenaries lent to France by Spain to serve in the 
lonking A\ar ; here the French officers, experienced 
in Algerine figliting, perfected them as irreeulars 
and so much so that they defeated bands of the 
native and Chinese -Black Flags," whom the 
h rench Zouaves had failed to overcome. It will soon 
be seen whether the victors over Apaches and Sioux 
cannot win against those whom the disciples of 
Fehssier and Espmasse failed to whip. 

Rumors being afloat in the - Walled City," Manila 
that American prisoners were badly treated, as were 
the Yorktoiv?i s crew, our officers were on the alert 
to inquire into this accusation every time thev sur- 
prised a hostile detachment. 

But nothing to confirm the report was found in 

several sharp struggles which distinguished October 

At Concepcion, Northern Panay, a coxswain of the 

Co7icord was lured ashore by a false white fla^ and 

disappeared. A battalion of the 18th and marines of 



212 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

his ship went ashore to deliver him, if possible ; but 
the rebels, as well as the inhabitants, fearing venge- 
ance, had quitted the town ; it was burnt as a 
punishment for this violation of martial law. 

At San Isidro, near Cananatuan, a temporary 
station was established after a little resistance in 
clearing the neighborhood of guerrillas. Three 
months' supplies victualed the new garrison. 

The water was now high, and many a rivulet was 
swollen into a river impassable and swift. 

From Iloilo came the news that, in spite of a feud 
between the Visayans and the Tagals, the leader of 
the latter talked of attacking the Americans with 
his ten thousand men, a third of whom were reported 
to carry muskets. 

At the same time the Filipinos tried to obtain 
terms of peace, under guise of sending in Spanish 
prisoners. They were answered that the Spanish 
prisoners would be received and well-treated, but the 
insurgents could not be dealt with. 

This persistency of the rebels, met with our usual 
firmness, may have come from desperation. Friends 
of the outlaws in Manila repeated passages in 
letters from the Independent party's camps, assert- 
ing that most were tired of the fruitless strife, and 
would let themselves be captured at the first oppor- 
tunity. 

But to show the duplicity of the race, these reve- 
lations were accompanied by discoveries revealing 
the insecurity of the position. 

A lieutenant of the Manila police had to be put 
under lock and key from being head of a plot to turn 
this service against the new masters, in event of an 
uprising, more or less concurrent with an approach 
of Aguinaldo to the gates. 

At Iloilo, where a revolutionary Junta was formed, 
independent of Aguinaldo or under his auspices, 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 2n 

one of the wealthiest Visayans was arrested He is 
Kuperto Santiago, who posed as onr friend after 
taking the oath of allegiance, wliile nsing the money 
raised on his sugar— our troops defending his plan- 
tations at Negros— to help his real friends ; one of 
his steamers was caught in the act of convevino- sup- 
plies to the Insurgents. His office was used fSr the 
meeting of his pseudo-government to overturn ours 
-bor learhis alhes would rise to rescue him the 
guards were doubled and other precautions observed 
The general opinion is that the pursuit of the 
beaten foes, particularly with cavalry which has al- 
most the terrifying effect of horsemen on the original 
people, as on the ancient Mexicans, will shatter the 
revolt. It IS averred that General Aguinaldo, leading 
m person, fails to induce supplies— mainly rice— to 
come m, and that no more recruits can be obtained 
Brigandage cannot prosper where a successful re- 
pressor lives on the country, also, and prevents the 
influx of supplies. 

If the rebels are compelled to take to the moun- 
tains, the rest and best of the Island of Luzon can 
be worked peacefully for our reimbursement. 

It is officially reckoned that, by the end of the 
year, we shall have 65,000 soldiers in the Philippines 
being twice those now patroling the disturbed 
quarters. 

Perhaps the Islands will be divided into military 
departments, each with its general. 

Through the efforts of K. Engelskjon, who enioys 
the confidence of the Tagalo chiefs in Mindanao 
overtures of peace have been made to General Otis at 
Manila. 

Mindanao is almost equal in area to Luzon, being 
one of the two great islands of the Pliilippines! The 
Mohammedans there number 150,000, and Spain has 
maintained little more than nominal sovereignty. 



214 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

They have suffered greatly from the inroads of the 
Muros, and offer to submit to the authority of the 
United States, on the sole condition that sufficient 
American garrisons be established in the island to 
protect them. 

The people of Iloilo look and dress like the Luzon 
Tagalogs, but the speech is a variation of the 
Visayan dialects. They seem a smiling race who care 
little what name the masters bear. Under the 
supervision of the Americans, camped in the 
suburbs of the town, they dwell contented, though 
they may be at heart with the stampeded Insurrectos. 
Half the town is in ruins, and the other, such as is 
old and built in stone, is cruQibling with age. The 
peasants walk under baskets containing market stuff 
for sale to the soldiers, or drive carts drawn by the 
caralao (cariboo), or water buffalo, and the ox-like 
tamarau, less tractable. These same animals are put 
to vehicles of pleasure. The better class of Filipinos 
have abandoned their pretty abodes in the suburbs, 
and with them has fallen into disuse the native 
spinning and weaving ; the price has risen of the 
weaves they make. The river winding through the 
low and prolifically overgrown country is nice to 
regard, and the native huts of palm and cane are 
picturesque. But the sun is very hot and the 
typhoons are, like the rains, of a terrible nature. 

Iloilo is reached by the steamer in some forty 
hours from Manila over a generally placid sea. 

Within four days' steaming the island of Cebu is 
reached. Cebu is ringed with hills and rugged shore, 
with the more level land devoted to sugar and other 
plantations. It ought to be a great port for sending 
out hemp, when we set the wheels going round. 
The only animation is about the ships loading hemp 
for Europe. The harbor is good for a tropical one, 
being defended by a reef of sand and volcanic matter. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 21 5 

The people are supposed to be trustworthy ; the 
policing of the port being confided to a native corps, 
who look fairly well in uniform which imposes on 
their tatterdemalion brethren. But the wiseacres 
insist upon it that they are in heart with the native 
cause, on the principle of the Hibernian irrecon- 
cilable who was " always ag'in' the government."' 

But there is little fear that the expelled insurrec- 
tionists will attack the town, where our garrison lord 
it tranquilly, in any force. Every night, their 
camp-fires are visible in tlie highlands, but one gets 
accustomed to *^fire in the mountain." At the same 
time, even a reconnaisance has to be numerous, as a 
slender party would infallibly be cut down. 

Here was the first Spanish settlement in the Archi- 
pelago, four hundred years old, but it has dwindled 
to nothing, particularly since the wealthy class 
migrated after the removal of the Spanish and our 
assuming rule. 

Our officers live in a convent, while two others are 
still open for educating respectively girls and boys. 
The hospital and churcli are interesting from their 
age ; the Sisters are a familiar object on the 
street. 

Mindanao is the next largest island to Luzon, and 
is held to be the finest and most fruitful of our new 
extension. As no troops have been sent to it yet, 
we know little of its Avealth. But foreigners are ac- 
counted more on the alert, and Englishmen and 
Germans are reputed to have secured valuable con- 
cessions of hard wood forests and rich mining lands. 
The prospectors are said to be delighted with their 
tests. 

In Luzon, which is of similar geological formation, 
volcanic (and nature seems to have poured out its 
most deeply buried treasures from craters), our 
soldiers who have had Western mining experience^ 



2l6 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

declare that they will remain when their term of en- 
listment expires and examine the placers and pockets. 

At the extreme south of the Philippines are the 
Sulu Islands, brought into notice by the fact of our 
treaty with their so-called Sultan, by which he 
retains his peculiar customs and habits. His " inti- 
mate life" makes his position the ^^ Mormon prob- 
lem" of the distant East. 

They are Malays and strict Mohammedans, though 
the Spanish called them Moors {Moros). It is tradi- 
tion that the islands were originally settled by Arabs 
who came over in the early Crusades ; the language 
called " Sulu " is a mixture of Arabian and Sanscrit. 
They are not bad-looking, though their foreheads are 
low and their skins dark. 

The betel-nut chewing habit prevails, and all who 
can afford it carry the mixture of betel and lime in 
a box more or less valuable from the material and the 
chiseling. This and the side-arms, the Malay hriss 
with its crinkly edge, are inseparable from the high 
Sulu ; the lower order carry a spear as defense, which 
takes the place of the North American Indians' 
tomakawk, being a missile as well as a hand weapon. 

Early in October, General Bates went to May bun, 
the Sultan's capital, to bring about that understand- 
ing which makes him and his fierce folk neutral in 
our conflict with the rebels, to whom, however, from 
the difference of language alone, to say nothing of 
religion, there was no affinity. They have had 
nothing to do with Aguinaldo, who is too far off. 
The treaty is lucky, for they are a savage people 
who gave the Spanish no end of bloodshed and 
remained unconquered through it all. The Sulus 
obey chiefs, like the Arabs, who in turn bow to the 
Sultan. 

They are good riders on a wiry native animal, use- 
ful as an Indian pony, and would make a desirable 



Of admiral DEWEY. 21^ 

cavalry auxiliary force under white officers to aid in 
scouring the Luzon mountains. 

As the English employ Sikhs and Goorkhas, why 
should we not hurl these Sulus at Mr. Emilio Agui- 
naldo's irregulars ? 

Jolo is on the north side of the island, opposite- 
Maybun, and represents the wonderful contrast in 
this fantastic, happy-go-lucky realm, of being well 
laid out and comparatively blessed with sanitary 
precautions. 

On inquiry, it turns out that the Spanish for once 
made a habitable town. Under the rule of Spanish 
Governor Arolas, this place was built on a spit run- 
ning out into the calm sea. He could not very well 
overrun their possession, as the warlike people 
objected, but he was king in his own castle. The 
Spanish were indeed cooped up in their walls by an 
amusing custom of the natives ; when one of them 
felt that life is a burden, he was wont to go to the 
priest of his faith, and vow to enter into Paradise by 
having one or more deaths of infidels upon his con- 
science. This gave him the title of Jiiramentado, 
or One-who-has sworn (to kill). 

Thereupon he would furbish his matchlock or file 
the creases of his kriss, that tolerable antetype- of 
our serrated cake-knife, and go upon the hunt for 
unbelievers. 

When their number was not to be despised, the 
Sultan used to remember that he had acknowledged 
the supremacy of Spain, and notify his brother-ruler 
that his perverse subjects were running a-muck. 

Once, when the stock of Juramentados was trouble- 
some beyond endurance. General Arolas mustered a 
fighting column, brushed the murderers out of his 
path and crossed the island where he pushed the 
fugitives into Maybun ; storming it, he set fire to 
the houses where the Juramentados had taken ref- 



2l8 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

uge, and left word to the Sultan what he had done, 
and the reason, adding that the Sultan had better 
be on his guard personally, as several SjMnish 
lunatics were loose, who had taken a vow to kill all, 
and several whom they encountered who did not be- 
long to the most Catholic Faith. 

Anyway, Arolas left his best monument in a pretty 
and salubrious town. 

It might smell sweeter, but what can you expect 
where there are pearl-fisheries and the flesh is al- 
lowed to rot to discover the precious globules ? 
This industry is in the hands of the Chinese, the 
more of a monopoly now as the Tagalos who did 
attend to it, went home to Luzon at the outbreak 
of the insurrection against our in-coming. 

As in former Australia, it was forbidden in society 
to hunt up a pedigree, so here, one is hushed about 
paternity ; the Spanish used these far-off strands to 
dump penal-servitude victims upon ; to tell the 
truth, many of the wretches had committed only 
political offenses. 

Jolo will be suited to our merchants, but not 
^klaybun until washed and cleansed, and kept so. 

Our arrangement with the Sultan will defer this 
for the proverbial '^ bime-by '' of pigeon English or 
the Spanish " to-morrow." 

In the meantime he keeps his slaves under our 
warrantv. 

The extension of the Manila-Dagupan railroad, 
which must be accomplished in our efforts to civilize 
the island, will pierce the haunts of the Igorrote- 
Chinese, a blend of Malay pirates and Chinese free- 
booters not of happy angury for tlie strain. 

Behind them, up in the mountains where the dis- 
banded Filipinos must retreat, and perhaps have to 
contend with them for the fastnesses, are the Igor- 
rotes. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 219 

They look like our own Red Indians but are de- 
scribed by the few adventurers who know them as less 
fierce. They seem a fair specimen of the noble un- 
contaminated savage, as the Spanish never got the 
mastery over them. They are brave, show some re- 
spect for their Avives, and have a good idea of fair- 
play. The blood feud prevails, based upon the 
Mosaic Law. 

Nearly twenty years since, they repelled General 
Primo de Rivera with substantial injury to him, 
which led to their being left undisturbed ever since. 
They fought on the insurgents' side, and manfully, 
at Caloocan and met the fire of our batteries with 
Zulu and Arab valor. They collect preserved heads 
of their foes, like the Head-hunters of the Ceylonese 
jungles. 

They are very hostile to the Christian religion, its 
doctrines of peace to all men and the concomitant 
moralities being incomprehensible to them. 

In Cayagan one, more witty than his fellows, was 
a prominent spokesman in venting their incredulity 
and repugnance to the maxims inculcated by a 
missionary's examples from '^ Lives of the Saints." 
He protested that no colored man was pictured in 
the missals and calendars. It was not precisely 
true, for there are black saints and even a black or 
African Madonna, but the missionary is said to have 
been silenced. 

They are confirmed cattle-lifters when war is not 
absorbing their young men. They, too, will prob- 
ably be turned against the Tagalos, like the Macca- 
bee warriors, their neighbors. 

For General Funston thinks that these warlike 
races are inclined to bear arms on our behalf ; they 
Avould be glad to serve for a trifle, say, ten dollars 
in silver per month. Students of the medley of 
races under our flag say that they would be good 



220 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

soldiers if officered with our '' West Pointers " ; and 
they would create no such dislike and race-hatred as 
the negroes would raise. 

As for the large percentage, Admiral Dewey ex- 
pressed his judgment to the effect that they were 
better fitted for partial self-government than the 
native Cubans. 

If any considerable force were raised in an auxiliary 
army, their place as cultivators could readily be sup- 
plied with coolies ; at present, the Chinese are ex- 
cluded, under the Exclusion Law, and a ship-load 
of them was stopped. 

With the missionary for the soul should go the 
missionary for the body ; the American smith, car- 
penter, wood-worker, miner and director of tillage. 
Then the miscalculation of our cavillers would be man- 
ifest ; that we have already expended more upon 
our new territory than a hundred years' revenue 
will recoup. 

The question of training our Eastern Elephant 
engages and divides our statesmen. The two camps 
are called the Imperialist or Expansionist, and the 
Anti-Imperialist. 

On the one hand, the Government is reproached 
for slaughtering patriots as earnest as our fore- 
fathers in breasting the British ; seizing and holding 
the Philippines by conquest or purchase is styled 
morally deplorable ; like the Cubans, the Filipinos 
should have home rule ; they are to be allowed to 
try a kind of government of which they can have no 
conception. 

On the other hand, as we have seen, the military 
on the field want the rebellion suppressed before a 
reform is attempted ; they affirm that, left to them- 
selves, the Isles will fall into the hands of some for- 
eign power intriguing in that part and going about 
wtth mouth open like the Cockney in the land where 




GIFT OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON TO THE "OLYMPIA."— The Tablet will be Pla. 

in the Olympia's Forward Turret. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 221 

the pigs ran ready roasted, and squeaked '^ Come, 
eat me ! " or the history would be a series of ephem- 
eral presidents, as in South America. Certainly, 
the Catholic priesthood see no likelihood of our quit- 
ting with the plow in the just-commenced furrow ; 
they are to appoint an American Bishop to the See 
of Luzon. 

Senator Piatt declares that " the unavoidable con- 
sequence of Admiral Dewey's triumph was our con- 
trol of the Philippines." And another senator, Lind- 
say, tellingly assures us that " American dominion 
in the Pliilippines will destroy none of the ends of 
government ; will disregard no one of the inalienable 
rights of man ; will sanctify no abuse or usurpation, 
but will terminate the despotism under which their 
people have lived for more than three hundred years." 
So be it ! 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

ALL ENDS WELL VfHEN TO THE KNELL OF THE MERRY 
WEDDII^G-BELL. 

The announcement, without its being undeniably 
authentic, that the Admiral contemplated matri- 
mony for the second time, promptly denied, but im- 
mediately revived by Washingtonian gossips, kept 
the quid-nuncs on the alert at the Capital, and the 
interest in the prospect was soon general. When, 
therefore, the bearing of his intimate friends, and 
his frequent calls at Mrs. McLean's house, together 
with his refusal to accompany the Presidential party 
on its electioneering tour (particularly directed 
against Mr. McLean, candidate for the governorship 
of Ohio, being Mrs. McLean's son) all seemed^ to 
confirm the report, no one was astonished at hearing 



222 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

that the marriage had taken place, most strictly 
private, with only a witness or two. 

It was bruited on the 7th of November that Lieuten- 
ant Caldwell, Dewey's friend, secretary and trusted 
factotum, had been seen around and about in a state 
of perturbation which no ordinary impetus could 
have thrown one into who had shared the Spanish 
missiles at the Battle of Manila Bay. 

Indeed, it was discovered that he had been to the 
court to procure a marriage license. 

The bride, it was no wonder, was to be Mrs. Hazen, 
daughter of Mrs. McLean, as before related. 

The license was No. 9316, which those who pre- 
tend to prophesy from numbers, pronounced fortu- 
nate : there are three and its multiples galore ; there 
is a nine, that is, three threes, in the sum ; on the 
whole, satisfactory. 

When and where was the ceremony to be per- 
formed ? 

Those who knew that Mrs. Hazeu had been already 
worried by all who sprang into activity at the first 
mention of her name coupled with the hero's, said 
that she meant to cut short the notoriety, the rush 
of newspaper reporters, the swarms of curiosity- 
seekers who came to stare at her mother's house and 
the one which the Nation had presented to her 
future husband. 

Out of public sight, her health and peace would 
no longer suffer. 

All the parties concerned, with their adherents, 
had been making odd and hap-hazard journeys hither 
and thither, their abodes were bombarded with tele- 
grams and letters ; florists' messengers were watched 
to see where a more than usually monstrous bouquet 
was left ; in short, Paul Pry was the god of the day. 

More than all, Admiral Dewey had become eclipsed, 
he who, instead of calling a cab, took to plain walk- 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 223 

ing about the streets, so that he was setting an ex- 
ample of the English ''constitutional.'' 

Nevertheless, those who esteemed themselves bosom 
friends were almost in tears, and hanging around 
the back stairs had availed nothing, since the servants 
merely looked wise and the Admiral's Mongolian 
domestic is impenetrable, like ''John,'' when he has 
a secret. 

The ladies vented their vexation by declaring that 
Mrs. Dewey-to-be would not receive any presents, 
fornot making the affair one of those functions in 
which the society tabbies delight. 

On the other hand, the men laughed their own 
disappointment off. They said that the mystifica- 
tion was worthy one who had hoaxed the Spanish 
and, eke, the wily Filipinos ; at the same time that 
they almost acquitted him of the jugglery, saying 
that the lady was roguish and was the source of the 
decej)tion. 

However, since the marriage was now settled, the 
place must be the bride's mother's, unless a grander 
scene was found. 

After all, that well-known mansion was suitable. 
It was built by Alexander Shepard, sometime Gov- 
ernor of the District of Columbia ; for a long period 
the Russian Embassy tenanted it and its galas were 
famous : several years ago, Mrs. McLean became the 
owner. In her widowhood, her daughter resided 
with her ; and after the loss of her son, it lost its 
splendor which was only just being restored. 

Therefore, it was before and in the neighborhood 
of this residence that the throng collected, comment- 
ing on the movements of the household, relating what 
had occurred, and suggesting what might follow. 

It was said that Lieutenant Caldwell, after securing 
the license, had conferred with the pastor of Mrs. 
Hazen's church. Several years ago, the lady became 



224 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

a Roman Catholic, and only the day before, her 
going where she had a pew and was a regular attend- 
ant, was construed into her bidding the Rev. Father 
Mackin to clear away obstacles from the rest of the 
path thus opened to the altar. 

Indeed, whether prompted by Lieutenant Caldwell 
or his parishioner, the priest had run over to Balti- 
more to j^rocure a dispensation from the matrimonial 
Curia there, since the Admiral was not of the 
same church as his selected one, but a Presbyterian. 

Cardinal Gibbons was in the Soutli, traveling to 
New Orleans, and the seal and signature is that of 
his vicar-general. Bishop Curtis. Thus fortified, the 
pastor of St. Paul's hurried back to his church. 

So veiled had all these actions been, that, even to 
his assistants, Father Foley, and a young priest, 
Father Hurburt, called in to his aid, no word was 
breathed of the persons to be united. 

From New York, had come the intelligence to the 
initiated, that the lady's trousseau was in preparation 
there. 

It was added that the dressmaker was flurried ex- 
cessively by the patronage, and had said to the Ad- 
miral, who had shaken hands with her, that she had 
never had a greater honor paid her and did not ex- 
pect the like to occur again. Poor woman, not be- 
ing strong, the exertion of getting the work done in 
time, precipitated her death, which the superstitious 
foolishly termed a ^Mioodoo." 

A circumstance as little affecting the person chiefly 
concerned, as the fatality attending the artists en- 
gaged on the Dewey Memorial ! 

The crowd lingering at the McLean mansion, saw 
the ladies, the hostess, and her two daughters, go 
out in their carriage, all the world as if for '' the 
appetizer " before lunch, and thought they were de- 
ceived once again. 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 22$ 

But, at the same time, a carriage had left Dewey's 
residence, bearing him and Lieutenant Caldwell, and 
these vehicles had the same destination — the modest 
and unpretentious Church of St. Paul. 

A little before ten in the morning, the first car- 
riage drew up there ; it was the gentlemen's. There 
was not a single bystander ; in nautical phraseology, 
the coast was clear ! 

For a few minutes, the bridegroom remained in 
his coach, in the best of spirits, though he might 
have been supposed impatient ; but very soon, before 
the hour, another carriage was driven up, and the 
gentlemen, alighting, hastened to hand out the three 
ladies. 

They all passed into the plain, simply-furnished 
rectory, as the difference in creed of the parties com- 
pelled them to be united aside from the sanctuary. 

None of the ladies carried flowers ; the only floral 
decorations there was a bunch of Avhite and yellow 
chrysanthemums, in a vase in the center of the sit- 
ting-room table ; prominent among the other decora- 
tive fixtures, was a portrait of the present Pcjpe, given 
to the rector in the Vatican during a visit toRome. 

The priest and his two assistants were in plain 
black cassocks. 

They were presented to the bridegroom and his 
'^ second." The former wore the American conven- 
tional morning dress for this occasion ; black coat, 
gray striped trousers and patent-leather shoes ; his 
hat was the high silk one in vogue. The lieutenant 
was similarly garbed. Neither wore gloves, accord- 
ing to the latest English regulation. 

The mother and the sister of the bride were attired 
in black from head to foot. The queen of the happy 
proceedings wore half-mourning : a long stylish black 
wrap cloak trimmed with silver fox and lined with 
lavender silk, but laid aside during the actual cere- 

15 



226 THE LIFE AND CAREER 

mony. The robe was a ^' dead '' color, in brocade, 
called ''ashes of roses," trimmed with silk fringe 
and rare old lace ; on one side a panel, and ruffles 
around the yoke ; an over-skirt " effect " was due to 
a lace garniture ; the New York martyr to Fashion 
had done her work deftly, although the viewers were 
so limited in number. It was not unworthy a cathe- 
dral wedding. Her gloves were white, and the silk 
looked almost snowy. 

If the costumes, after our depressing Anglo-Saxon 
mode, were rather lugubrious, the solemnity did not 
prevent a shimmer of felicity exhaling which alle- 
viated the superficial aspect. 

The forms of uniting two varying in creed are very 
brief ; in five minutes all the words were uttered. 

Previously the priest had spoken this address : 

'' Before pronouncing the solemn words which will 
bind you forever together it may be well to forget for 
a moment the things that are around us and to look 
upward. We are the children of God and we have 
a right to call upon Him in joy and in sorrow. We 
need His help in both extremes and never more than 
now, for although the promises you are about to 
make are easily made and the work of a moment, 
their fulfilment is the work of a lifetime. 

'' We call upon God to witness and to bless this 
union of which He is the author and which He has 
made sacred. No matter how generous and devoted 
you may be to each other, there are in every life 
moments of trial when we, in our weakness, need the 
help that comes from above, and this^ help will be 
given in its fulness in return for the faithful fulfil- 
ment of our obligation. 



NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 



''The higher your position in life, the more in- 
cumbent upon you is the faithful fulfilment of your 



OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 22y 

obligation and the more rigorous the accounts that 
will be exacted. The neglect of these obligations 
will cast its shadow iii^on eternity. 

'' But this hour, we hope, marks the beginning of 
a career which will make you wiser, better and more 
useful to your fellow creatures in this life and the 
life beyond it, and when death at last shall break the 
link which binds you, as death alone can break it, 
may that last Jiour find the two hands as fondly 
clasped and the two hearts as closely joined as they 
are to-day, and may tlie joys of this life be a fore- 
taste of the joys that are to come." 

_ After the final sentence was pronounced, the Bene- 
dict leaned forward and kissed his prize, whereupon 
the congratulations inundated both the blushing ones. 

The worthy Father was gallant— he took Mrs. 
Dewey's extended hand and remarked that he was to 
be the first one to congratulate her in her new name. 

The strain over, there was a little more in a lighter 
key. 

Before studying for the priesthood, Father Mackin 
had been a seaman on a packet nlying between Wash- 
ington, or Baltimore, and England. He had run 
away from home tc do that ; but, on repenting, he 
had returned to his books. 

'^It was on finding that it is not given to every 
one to rise to an Admiralship," continued he, wittily, 

1 dropped over the side upon the hassock ' " 

Dewey declared he was very glad that he had been 
married by a sea-farer. 

It was now the bride's turn to show her native ffood 
spirits. " 

*'% the way. Father Mackin," said she, with 
pietty, pretended severity, " you wrote me last sum- 
mer that my pew was growing musty from disuse. 
X on will have to change the word now from musty 
to Mil. Deiuey ! '' ^ 



228 THE LIFE AND CAREER OF ADMIRAL DEWEY. 

Hence it was that the gentleman and ladies left 
the priests smiling, and carried away laughter with 
them into their carriages. 

Back rolled the two vehicles, this time with the 
identical destination : Mrs. McLean^ where the 
breakfast was waiting. 

There were no other invites waiting, though. 

In repartee to a quip that the couple had been in 
great haste over this marriage, the Admiral quietly 
replied that the engagement had been formed before 
he departed for Manila ! This renewed the merri- 
ment at the table, decorated with Bride roses. 

After an hour, and a change into traveling dress, 
the happy pair were driven to the Pennsylvania 
E. R. Station, where they took the midday train for 
New York. 

Secretary Long saw them off and added his felici- 
tations. There was no demonstration, as few people 
were about, and those who recognized the illustrious 
passenger politely refrained from that noisy greet- 
ing of which the Victor of Manila had undergone an 
excess. 

We can best conclude our history with these lines 
of good wishes, which appear like the united out- 
burst of the great naval hero's innumerable admirers: 

" To the gallant Admiral and the charming woman 
whom he has this day taken for his bride the Ameri- 
can people will join in a mighty chorus of congratu- 
lation and good wishes. The great sea warrior has 
won his most glorious victory and his lovely consort 
her proudest conquest. If their lives are as happy 
as their countrymen shall wish, their future course 
will be over placid seas with fair winds and to a haven 
unshadowed by a cloud. ^^ 



THB BN3>, 



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